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HISTORY   OF  CALIFORNIA. 


y 


THE 


HISTOPiY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 


BY 

FEAI^^KLIN    TUTHILL. 


SAN  FRANCISCO: 

H.    H.    BANCROFT    &    COMPANY. 

1866. 


Entered  accordina;  to  Act  of  Congress,  tn  the  year  1866. 

Bt  H.   H.   BANCROFT   &  CO., 

In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  United  States  for  the 
Northern  District  of  California. 


PEEFAOE. 


The  following  liook  was  written  because  there 
seemed  to  be  a  demand  for  a  History  of  California 
which  should  sketch  the  main  events  of  the  country 
from  its  discovery  to  the  i:>resent  time.  The  pioneer, 
under  whose  observation  the  most  exciting  of  tliese 
events  have  occurred,  confesses  the  need  of  sucli  a 
book.  The  thousands  who  have  entered  the  State 
since  it  assumed  its  present  peaceful  aspect,  complain 
of  the  lack  of  a  succinct  story  of  what  had  to  be  done 
here  to  make  the  land  so  pleasant  a  home. 

The  material  for  a  history  of  California  is  abundant. 
The  log-books  of  ancient  mariners  who  visited  the 
coast — the  voluminous,  if  not  well-kept  archives  of  the 
Government,  wliile  the  territory  Avas  under  Spanish  or 
Mexican  rule — the  official  reports  and  Congressional 
documents  about  the  transfer  to  the  United  States — the 
files  of  newspa2:)ers  since  the  land  was  Americanized — 
the  scores  of  books  of  intelligent  travellers,  who  luive 
put  their  impressions  on  record,  and  the  oral  evidence 
of  natives,  and  early  immigrants,  who  mingled  in  all 
the  affairs  most  interesting  to  us — from  these  sources 
may  be  drawn  ample  details  of  life  in  California,  from 
dates  as  far  in  the  j^ast  as  any  but  enthusiastic  antiqua- 
rians care  to  retire  to. 

There  are  several  histories  of  California  to  be  found 
in  the  libraries,  some  of  them  works  of  permanent 
value.  One  of  the  oldest,  the  "Jesuit  Venegas,"'  and 
the  authority  for  the  times  and  places  of  which  it  treats, 
was  printed  a  century  ago,  when  the  California  of  the 


260753 


\  111  PREFACE. 

moderns  was  an  unknown  land.  The  history  hy 
Forbes,  the  Englishman,  and  the  valuable  report  of 
explorations  bj^  De  Mofras,  the  Frenchman,  each  much 
quoted  and  appreciated  in  the  highest  quarters,  were 
written  while  our  California  was  deemed  by  Americans 
the  very  remotest  land  of  the  globe,  farther  away  for 
all  practical  purposes  than  the  East  Indies,  more  inac- 
cessible than  the  antipodes.  After  the  discovery  of 
gold  in  California,  there  was  quite  an  irruption  of 
books  about  the  country,  and  among  them  a  few  histo- 
ries, which  rendered  the  outlines  of  its  past  career 
familiar,  and  ministered  admirably  to  the  needs  of  the 
early  adventurers.  But  since  their  period,  though  the 
term,  counted  by  years,  is  very  short,  all  has  happened 
that  is  most  stirring  in  California  story.  Those  events, 
so  impossible  of  repetition,  seem,  even  to  the  actors  in 
them,  to  belong  to  a  distant  antiquity.  The  sixteen 
years  that  have  elajosed  since  the  American  occupation, 
embrace  such  physical  and  social  changes  as  oftener 
require  a  full  century  for  tlic^r  development. 

No  doubt  a  better  histoiy  can  be  written  when  the 
country  is  older,  and  time  has  mor(3  thoroughly  tested 
some  social  experiments  that  seem  already  successful. 
But,  considering  by  how  large  a  portion  of  the  popula- 
tion of  the  State  its  thrilling  story  is  but  dimly  remem- 
bered, like  a  tale  told  long  ago  in  a  far-distant  spot, 
concerning  lands  now  familiar,  but  Avhich  the  hearer 
never  dreamed  would  become  his  home,  this  work  is 
cheerfully  submitted  to  tlie  public,  in  hope  that  it  will 
be  received  in  the  same  spirit  of  charity  with  which  it 
was  written. 

AuOl'rfT,  I860. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER    I. 

Tim  APPROACnES  TO,  AKD  DTSCOVERT  OF,   CALIFORXIA. 

Hindrances  to  the  Earlier  Discovery  of  California.— Columbus's  Theory  left  no  Room  for 
Calilornia  on  the  Globe.— First  Voyagers  on  the  Pacific— Expeditions  sent  up  tlie 
Coast  by  Cortez.— His  Pilot,  Xinic'nes,  discovers  Lower  Calilornia.  a.  d.  15:54.— Ca- 
biillo  discovers  Upper  California,  a,  d.  I.'ii-^  — TTi,.^  C.m.sf.  .Snna^j;:  Profitless.— Meaning 
of  the  Word  California.— Boundaries  of  the  Country Pages  I— U 

CHAPTER    II. 

A  NOTABLE  EXGLISHMAN  IX  CALlFORyiA. 

Inducements  to  the  Exploration  of  the  Coast.— The  Straits  of  Anian.— Sir  Francis  Drako 
about  Cape  Horn,  and  on  the  Paciflc. — He  Attempts  Upturning  to  Europe  by  a  North- 
ern Pioute. — Visits  California,  a.  d.  1.579,  and  names  it  New  Albion. — A  Pedestrian  Trip 
throuirh  the  Country. — The  Climate  gets  a  Bad  Name.— Drake  probably  entered  San 
Francisco  Baj-.— Keasons  for  the  Belief. — Chai'acteristics  of  the  Natives. — Did  they 
find  Gold  *    . ". Pages  15— '27 

CHAPTER    III. 

VISCAiyOS  E.YPLORATIOy.S  ALONG   TITE  CALIFORNIA    COAST. 

Philip  II.  orders  the  Settlement  of  California. — Viscaino's  Settlement  at  La  Paz. — His  care- 
ful Exploration  of  the  Coast,  a.  d.  1G02. — Describes  San  Diego  and  Monterey. — Ills 
Crew  Suffers  from  Scurvy. — Did  he  Visit  San  Fnincisco? — The  B^esuits  of  his  Voyage 
Wasted Pages  •2-i-3(J 

CHAPTER    IV. 

UNSUCCESSFUL  ATTEMPTS  TO   COLONIZE  THE  COUNTRY. 

Pirates  on  the  Coast. — Futile  Attempt  of  Admiral  Otondo  and  Father  Kino  to  Colonize 
California  in  108-3. — The  Jesuits  decline  the  Job. — Topographical  Reasons  why  the 
Spanish  Navigators  missed  the  best  Harbor  on  the  Coast,. .". Pages  37—41 

CHAPTER    Y . 

EXPERIMENTS  OF  THE  JESUITS  IN  CALIFORNIA. 

Jesuit  Occupation  of  the  Peninsula. — Fathers  Kino  and  Salva  Tierra  undertake  the  Spir- 
itual Conquest  of  California.— Settlement  at  Loreto,  a.  d.  1697. — Their  Method  with 
the  Indians.— A  Rebellion  Met  by  Coercion. — Teidousy  of  the  Jesuits  Hinders  their 
Success. — Hard  Times. — Fattier  l"garte  at  the  Missicm.-Kino,  from  Sonora.  furnishes 
Sui>plies. — Effort  to  Connect  the  Settlements  of  the  Peninsula  and  the  Main-Land  by 
a  Chain  of  Missions. — Overland  Excursions  from  Sonora  to  Lower  Calilornia. — Salva 
Tierra's  Unwelcome  Promotion.  Release,  and  Death. — Alberoni's  Grand  Scheme  and 
its  tiollapse. — The  Pioneer  Home-Built  Vessel. —  Ugarte  Explores  the  Gulf — Geo- 
graphical  Surveys.— Ugarte  Dies.— A  Success.— The" Missions  Relieve  the  Philippino 


X  C0NTEITT3. 

Galleon. — A  Rf-bellion. — Life  t\t  the  Mission.— Wliippinc:  Topnlnr  with  the  InOi.nns. — 
The  I'loiis  Fund. — The  Jesiiit.s  K.NpelliMl. — '1  he  Framiscans  iissiiino  ibe  Lower  t'ali- 
foriiia  Missions. — Begerfs  HIast  airainst  C'alifornia. — 'I'lie  Dominicans  lleliive  the 
Fi-aneiscans,  who  (a.  d.  1769):roto  Upper  Caliloinia.— Venega's  History  and  Cnnoi  s 
Map T Pages  42— 1 1 

CHAPTER    YI. 

OCCVPATIOy  OF   UPPER  CALIFORNIA  BY  THE  FRANCISCANS. 

Gaivpz's  and  Jnnipcro's  Expedition,  in  four  DetachmeTits,  to  Settle  Upper  California. — 
They  llendezvciiisat  San  Die^ro. — A  Mission  Kstal)lisl)ed,  A.  o.  1769. — (tovcrnor  TortalA 
visits  Monlerey  Harbor.  Overland,  without  recou'nizinir  it. — Discovers  San  Francisco 
by  Land. — Indian  Outbreak  at  San  Dies:". — Monterey  Discovered, — Joyful  Keception  of 
the  News  in  Mexico. — Death  of  Father  Junijiero,  A.  D  17S4. — Location  of  the  Mis- 
sions.— \  Vessel  enters  San  Francisco  I!ay,  June,  1775 — Order  of  Kstablishnicnt  of 
the  Missions Pages  72 — 87 

CHAPTER    YII. 

THE  ABORIGINES. 

The  AboriiTiEes  of  Upper  Californi.i. — Digrser  Mytholojry,  Tradition.*,  and  Cnstoms. — Their 
Fxid;  rjeli^'ious  ami  Social  Life;  'Medical  Pnictice ;  the  Sweat-Ilonse. — Burial  or 
BurniufT  of  the  Dead.— Their  Ideas  of  Death Pages  8S — 97 

CHAPTER    VIII. 

DETAILS  OF  THE  MISSION  SYSTEM. 

The  Spai^ish  Policy  towards  the  Indians. — Theory  of  the  Mission  System. — The  Mission 
Buildings. — The  Indian  linncheria. — Government  of  the  Mission. — The  Presidio. — 
Oollisioti  of  Priests  and  S(ddieis. —  The  Pueblo  of  ditferent  Kinds. — Political  Govern- 
ment of  California  under  Spain. — lOffect  of  tbe  Manifold  Order  System.     Pages  98 — 110 

CHAPTER    IX. 

A   CALM  HALF  CENTURY. 

Tbe.  Indians  take  kindly  to  ^li.ssion  Life. — .\n  Era  of  Tranqiiillity. — Number  of  Domesti- 
cated Indians  at  diilfeient  Piriod-s. — Popidation  ol  each  ML-isinn,  a.  d.  1S02. — Thriving 
'I'imes. — Yankees  Buy  their  Hides. — Fear  of  lOarMupiakes. — Drea<l  of  Foreiffners. — 
The  Viceroy's  Orders  to  beware  of  Captain  Cook. — Vancouver  Well  Treated. — Ji'alousy 
of  American  Vi.sitors. — John  Brown  at  San  Francisco. — The  Uussian  Occupation,  from 
1812  to  1842.  of  a  Strip  on  tbe  Coast Pages  111—120 

CHAPTER    X. 

CALIFORNIA    UNDER  MEXICAN  RULE. 

California  Accepts  Imperi.il  Mexico's  Paile{lS22). — List  of  Governors  of  California  while 
under  Si)ain. — Becomes  a  Territory  of  Uepubliean  .Mexico. — Proposed  Ch.ange  of 
Name. — .Jedediah  S.  Smith  arrives  Overland  from  tlie  Fast,  A.  D.  1826. — The  Fur  Busi- 
ness.— Tbe  L'iiius  Fund  diverted  from  tlie  Ecclesiastics  to  the  Spanish  and  Mexican 
Governments. — The  Mexican  CoIonizati(m  Act  of  1824. — Wealth  of  tbe  Missions  in 
1834 Pages  121—129 

CHAPTER    XI. 

THE  MISSIONS  SECULARIZED. 

Trouble  Comes. — Governor  I'.cheandia  tries  to  enforce  tbe  Secularization,  a.  d.  1830. — 
boliz's  Insurrection. — Governor  Victoria  Arrests  the  Secularizatioa. — The  Kcbcandia 


CONTENTS.  XI 

Insurrection. — Portilla's  Treachery. — Vietriria  Keeps  his  Promise,  nnil  Retires  to 
Mexico. — Pio  IMcn  !iii;ioiute(l  Governor  by  the  LeL'ibUitiire. — Aniirchy  nnd  (.Joiilnsion. — 
Figneroa  arrives  lliidiifih  many  Perils. —  DivUlon  of  the  Missions:  the  Spanisli  Fran- 
ciscans take  those  South  ofSan  l.iiis  Oliispo  ;  the  Mexican  Fiariciscans  take  tliose  North 
of  it. — Director  Ilijar's  Colony  arrivc.-s  at  Sol.iiii>. —  1  he  Missionaries  hasten  to  Destroy 
their  Property. — Great  Slaucrhter  of  Cattle. — The  Culonisis  Jlevolt,  aud  arc  Kxiled. — 
The  Territorial  Leeislature  turns  over  the  Missions  to  Governor  Figueroa. — Death  of 
Kigneroa,  a.  d.  ISijo T. .  Pages  130 — 140 

CHAPTEll    XII. 

REBELLION,  SECESSIOy,  RESTORATION,  PANICS. 

Custom-IIouse  Quarrel. — Picvolution. — Alvarado   and    Isaac  Graham  capture  the  Capital,      <. 
and  Proclaim  the  Independence  of  Calii'oriia. — Alvarado  crushes  out  a  Itebellion  ;  is       / 
appointed  (Jovtrtior  by  Mexico,  and  Pecogniz.s  Mexico  again  as  the  Central  Power. —       ^ 
Graham  and  other  Foreiirners  Arrested  and  Exiled,  but  "return  again  with  Honor. — 
Go\ernor  Miclieltorena  arrives. — A  1  anie. — Comniodore  Jones   hoists   thi-   American 
Flaa  at  Monterey. — Hauls  it  down  again,  and   Apidogizes. — Alvarado  and  ValUjo  cap-       ! 
turethe  Governor's  Ammunition.— Sliclultorena  Invokes  Sutters  Aid.— Sutter  obtains 
a  "General  Title"  to  certain   Lands. — 'i'lie  F<u'eigners  stand  aside,  leaving  Mexicans      ,' 
and  Californians  to  Fight  it  out. — The  Mexicans  Surrender. — Apparition  from  over  the       •y 
Mountains. — Fremont's  Appearance. — List  of  Mexican  Governors  of  California. 

Pages  141 — 151 

CHAPTER    XIII. 

THE  ''NATIVE  CALIFORNIANSr 

What  they  understood  by  "Independence."— Cliaracter  of  the  People. — Great  Riders. — 
Their  llonies,  Habits,  Food,  Dress,  aill  Gar  lens. —  Boston  Traders  arrive  after  1S22. — 
How  Justice  was  Admini'^tered. —  Ub.'ilers  in  the  Piirt. — Immigrants,  and  the  Impres- 
sion that  ail  is  soon  to  be  Americanized Pages  102 — IGl 


CHAPTER    XIV. 

FREMONT  AND    THE  BEAR   PARTY  REVOLUTION. 

Fiemont's  Exploring  Party  asks  Permission  to  Rest  in  the  San  Joaquin  Valley,  a.  n.  1846. — 
Castro's  Fair  Pr(imisesand  Treacherous  l'erforman''eS. — Frenumt  stands  a  Siege. — Pro- 
ceeds Norlhwanl.— Is  Overtaken  by  LiiMitenant  GilU-spic  wiih  Dispatches  from  Home. 
— His  Camp  broken  into  l)y  Indians. — Fonr  of  hie,  Party  Killed. — Resolves  to  Revo- 
lutionize the  Govermm^nt. -Returns  to  the  Sacramento  Valley. — Merritt's  Party  Cap- 
tures Sonoma. — William  15.  Ide's  Proclamation. — Tlie  Bear  Flag. — Lieutenant  Ford's 
Expedition  routs  De  la  Torre"s  Force. — Fremont  Organizing  a  IJattalion. — Arrives  at 
Sonoma. — Declaration  of  Independence,  July  5th. — The  Bear  Party  Absorbed  into  the 
Battalion. — Fremont  gives  Chasu  to  Castro P.ages  1C2 — 175 

CHAPTER    XV. 

TEE  AMERICAN  CONQUEST  OF  CALIFORNIA. 

Movements  of  the  I'nited  States  Navy  in  the  Pacific. — Commodore  Sloat's  Instructions. — 
A  Race  and  its  Consequences. — Sloat  raises  the  United  States  Flag  at  Monterey,  July 
7th,  1S4G.— British  I'lots  to  secure  Calilbrma  rendered  Fuliie. — The  United  States  Flag 
raised  at  San  Francisco. — It  replaces  the  Bear  Flag  at  Sonoma — Fremont  anticipates 
Sloat's  Messenger,  and  seizes  the  Govein:r:ent  Arms  at  San  Juan. — Reports  to  Sh.at. — 
The  Commodore  Puzzled,  and  out  ot'Spirit.s. — Refuses  to  .'Veeept  into  Service  Fremont  s 
Battalion. — Arrival  of  Commodore  Stockton. — He  takes  Command  of  the  Land  Forces. — 
Sloat  Sails  for  Home. — Ocnijiation  of  the  Ports.— Stockton  lands  at  San  Pedro;  Marches 
his  Force  to  Los  Angeles,  and  organizes  a  Territorial  Government  for  California. — The 
Flores's  Insurrection  at  the  South Pages  176 — 192 


XU  CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER    XVI. 

CALIFORyjA'S   TUliEE   CONQUERORS  AND  FIRST  THREE  AMERICAN 
GO  VERNORS. 

Stockton's  Measures  to  Quell  the  Insurrection. — Captain  Mcrvino"s  Party  Kepnlsed  near 
San  Pedro,  by  the  Califoi  nians. — News  of  General  Keainy  at  San  Pasqiial.  — Stoektim 
sentls  liiin  timely  Kelief. — Kearny  arrives  at  San  Dieiro. — Tlie  Advance  upon  Lms 
Anjrelct-. — The  Enfraireiiient  on  the  Plains  of  San  Gabriel. — ^tockton  re-enters  Ln.s 
Angeles,  January  loth,  1S4T. — Fremont's  Battalion  moves  Southward. — He  Pardons 
Jesus  IMii). — A  Toilsome  March. — Fremont  makes  and  Proclaims  the  Treaty  of  Cn- 
nen^'a.— Delicate  Kelations  of  Stockton,  Kearny,  and  Fremont. — Fremont  lieports  i.> 
Stockton. — Fremont  as  Governor. — Seven  Weeks  of  Tranquil  Sjilendor. — Kearny  and 
Shubriik  join  to  depose  him. — Proclamation  Ignoring  the  Conenga  Treaty. — Fremont's 
Famous  Kidi — Is  refused  an  Interview  with  Ke.arny,  except  in  Presence  of  Colonel 
Mason. — Fremont  Disobeys  Orders. — Stevenson's  Itegiment  Arrives. — Fremont  goes 
East  under  Arrest. — His  Trial  and  Sentence — llefuses  the  President's  Clemency,  and 
IJetires  from  the  Service Pages  IDS— 218 

CHAPTER    XVII. 
^--1^\^  FRANCISCO  AMERICANIZED. 

The  Land  Escipos  Mornionism. — Terba  Buena's  Change  of  Name. — Its  Newspapers. — 
Benicia. — First  Alcaldis  of  San  Francisco. — First  Mayor  and  the  Aynntamiento. — Pub- 
lic Meetings. — Overland  Immigrants  Snow-slaved  East  of  the  Sierra  Nev.adas. — Terrible 
Siitlerings  of  the  Uonner  Party. — Meeting  "(jf  Indiirnation  concerning  Fremont. — 
Growth  of  San  Francisco,  and  its  Sudden  Depopulation Pages  214 — 22-5 

CHAPTER    XVIIl. 

THE  GOLD  DISCOVERT. 

Gold  Discovered  at  Coloma,  January  19th,  1848.— Governor  Mason's  Visit  to  the  Placers.— 
Ilis  Report  to  the  War  Department. — How  the  News  was  Pcccived  at  the  Ea?t. — 
Previous  Hints  of  Gold  in  California. — Circumstances  of  the  Discorery  of  1S48. 

Tagea  220—2-34 

CHAPTER    XIX. 

GRAND  RUSH  TO  CALIFORNIA. 

Peace  between  the  United  States  and  Mexico. — Terms  of  the. Treaty. — The  California  Fever 
a  World-wide  Epidemic. — They  come  in  C(unpanies  with  stran-ro  Ventures  in  Eotten 
Bottoms. — Isthmus  and  Overland  Inmiigiants. — The  Grumblers. — Theories  of  the 
Gol<l  Production. — Simnltaneous  Settlement  of  the  Mining  Keirion. — Society. — Crime 
and  its  Pnnishmei\t  in  the  Mines. — jlnomalous  Method  of  Civil  Governmeiit. 

Pages  235—243 

CHAPTER    XX. 

CONGRESS  FAILS  TO  PROVIDE  A   GOVERNMENT. 

Unavailing  Efforts  to  give  California  a  Government. — Polk's  Request  and  the  Wilniot  Pro- 
viso.—Senators  Corwin,  Calhoun,  Benton,  and  Dix  on  Califon.ia. — Clayton's  Bill  Passc  s 
the  Senate,  and  is  Defeated  in  the  Honse. — Congress  does  nothing  for  California,  1S4T- 
'4S. — Presiilent  Polk's  Letter  to  Californians. — Colonel  Benton's  Letter  to  the  Same. — 
The  CongH'SS  of  lS4S-'4'.i.— Douglas's  State  Bill  Adversely  Reiiorteil.— A  Special  Com- 
mittee lieports  Favorably. — Senatorial  Discussions. — Dayton  says  thev  can  get  a  Con- 
stitutional Convention  only  by  usinir  the  Lasso. — Webster  advises  a  Military  Govern- 
ment.— Proposition  to  t'ede  back  California  to  Mexico. — A  Territorial  Bill  put  on  the 
,\|)propriation  Bill. — Dix  reirrets  the  Gold  Discovery. — Webster  and  Callioun  Debate 
Constitutional  Questions. — A  Stormy  Sunday  Morniiig  Session. — Foote  Raves. — Jclfer- 
Bon  Davis  would  Sacriflce  California  to  the  Appropriations. — The  Seiiate  Recedes,  and 
California  gets  no  Government — Revenue  Laws  Extended  over  Califorida. 

Pages  249—261 


CONTENTS.  Xiii 

CHAPTER    XXI. 

TEE  COKSTITVTIOXAL  COXVEXTIOX. 

The  People  of  ralitornia  Establish  a  Government — Governor  Riley's  Proclamation  for  a 
State  Convention. — Election  of  DelesrMtcs. — Small  Vote  Cast. — Constitntional  Conven- 
tion meets  at  Monterey,  September,  1S49. — Tlie  Antecedents  of  Members. — Organiza- 
tion of  the  Convention. — Slavery  Prohibited  Forever. — Deliate  concerning  Negro  Im- 
migration.— State  Boundaries. — The  Slavery  Question. — Lotteries,  Diiellinir,  Schools, 
Banks. — Expenses  of  Convention. — Concluding  Courtesies. — The  People  Adopt  the 
Constitution .". Pages  26-.J— 283 

CHAPTER    XXII. 

THE  FIRST  STATE  LEGISLATURE. 

Meeting  of  the  First  Legislature  at  San  Jos6. — Governor  Kiley  suirenders  his  Autliority  as 
Governor  to  Governor  Burnett  — Fremont  and  Gwin  elected  U.  S.  Senators. — The 
Legislature's  Ueputation  and  Work. — Rate  of  Interest. — Foreign  Miners'  License. — 
Utah's  Curious  Petition. — Bi-ief  History  of  the  Cities  Chartered. — San  Francisco's 
Growth. — The  Uounds. — Sacramento. — Counties  Organized. — Meaning  and  Origin  of 
their  Names Pages  2S4 — 305 

CHAPTER    XXIII. 

WAITIXG   OX  COXGRESS  FOR  ADMISSIOX  TO   THE  UXIOX. 

President  Taylor's  Message,  advising  the  Admission  of  California. — Admits  that  he  urged 
the  People  to  Oriranize  n  State. — Clay's  Compromises  Proposed. — California's  Admis- 
sion discussed  by  Senators  Foote,  Mason,  Davis,  Clay,  King,  Calhoun,  Webster,  and 
Seward. — Bell's  Compromise  Rescjluticjus. — Debate  on  tlie  Compromises  submitted  by 
Clay's  Seh-et  Committee. — The  California  Bill  passes  the  Senate. — Ten  Senators  Pro- 
test.— It  passes  the  House,  and  is  approved  by  the  President,  September,  1850.— The 
other  Compromise  Measures. — Repose. — What  Disturbs  and  Ends  it.. .  Pages  306 — 323 

CHAPTER    XXIV. 

■'  TEE  FALL  OF  '49  AXD  SPRIXG  OF  '50." 

News  of  the  Admission  into  the  Union  celebrated. — The  Tent  Era.^FIush,  Thriftless 
Times. — Cost  of  Living  in  the  "Fall  of  '49  and  Spring  of  '50." — The  Scarcity  of  Fe- 
males.— Character  of  the  Population. — All  try  the  Mines. — The  Currenev. — 'VVages 

Labor  Honorable  with  all.— State  of  the  Market.— A  Wet  Winter.— Style  'of  Houses.  — 
Fires  in  San  Francisco. — Mining  Rushes. — Squatter  Riots. — Gambling,  Lynch  Law, 
Politics. — Conservative  Influences  at  Work. — Sources  of  State  Pride  ami  Hope. 

Pages  324—345 

CHAPTER    XXY. 

AFTER   THE  ADMISSIOX. 

Product  of  the  Mines. — ^New  Mining  Methods. — Quartz-Crushing  and  Water-Ditches. — 
Agriculture,  Manufactures,  and  Commerce. — The  Markets  alternately  Bare  and  Glut- 
ted.— I'opulation  of  the  State. — The  Indians  and  Indian  Wars. — Correspondence  be- 
tween Governor  Bigler  and  the  U.  S.  Agents  concerning  the  Indians. — War  Debt. — 
Reservations. — The  Chinese  Welcomed  at  first,  but  soon  Disliked. — Tlieir  "  Houses." 
Habits,  Worship,  and  Employments. — A  Chinese  Fight. — Excitement  in  the  Legisla- 
ture about  Negro  Testimony ." Pages  340-378 

CHAPTER    XXVI. 

GRO  WTU  AXD  IIIXDRAXCES  OF  THE  TO  WXS  AXD   CITIES. 

San  Francisco's  Progress. — Real  Estate. — Land  Claims. — The  Limantour  Fraud. — Exorbi- 
tant Taxes. — The  Peter  Smith  Judgments  and  Sale  of  City  Property. — Sacramento  — 


XIV  CONTENTS. 

Firos  and  Floods. — ^^ar}•svilIc. — Stockton. — Xevada  City. — Grass  Valley. — Placprvillc. 
— Other  Towns  and  Cilii-s. — Frequent  liemuvals  of  the  Capi'.al Pages  379 — 392 

CHAPTEE,    XXYII. 

FILLIDi'STERISM. 

William  Walker. — Ilis  Sonora  Expedition. — Its  Injili  riotis  Fnd. — The  Mexican  and  French 
Consuls  at  San  Francisco  tried  for  Violating'  the  Neutrality  Laws Pages  393—401 

CHAPTER    XXV  IT  I. 

A  FIXAXCIAL  STORM. 

The  Financial  Storm  of  lSo5.— Failure  of  Patrc,  Bacon  &  Co.— The  Ad.nms  &  Co.  Muddle.— 
Their  Books  lost  and  found  — AHred  A.  Colien,  Isaiah  C.  Woods,  and  Trenor  W.  Park.— 
Sketch  of  the  Career  of  ".lanus  Kinjr,  of  Wm."— Tlie  Banker  turned  Editor.— The 
Subjects  of  bis  Assault. — Palmer,  i  imk  &.  <'o. — State  Finances  in  a  Bad  Way. — Watcr- 
Frouc  Extension. — Franchise-Hunting. — The  Courts Pages  402 — 412 

CHAPTER    XXIX. 
POLITICS. 

Early  Democracy  of  the  State. — Governor  Burnett. — Governor  McDougall. — Governor 
Bigkr. — Tammany  and  Chivalry  Wiul's  of  the  Democratic  Party.— Double-headed 
Convention  of  lSl>4. — Know  Is'oihing  ^■iet()ly. — First  Election  (or  U.  S.  Senators. — 
Fremont  and  Gwin  cliosen. — Failure  to  elect  Fremont's  Successor  in  1S5I. — Wellcr 
elected  in  1S.V2.— The  Struggle  of  1&54.— Broderiek  beaten.— Gwin  still  kept  out  of  the 
Vacant  Seat  in  1855. — Narrow  Kseape  Irom  Henry  S.  Footers  Election  in  l^oG. — How- 
San  Francisco  and  Sacramento  Vole. — The  real  liuling  Classes. — Lynehings. — Increas- 
ing Violence  and  Crime ." Pages  413^431 

CHAPTER    XXX. 
TUE   VIGILAXCE  COMMITTEE  OF  ISoG. 

Assassination  of  "James  King,  of  Win.,"  bj' Supervisor  Casey. — Formation  of  the  Vigil- 
ance Committee. — Newsi)aper  Treatment  of  the  Assas^ination — Great  Public  Excite- 
ment.— The  I'ulpit  on  the  Visilanee  Movement. — Casey  taken  Iroiii  the  Jail  by  the 
People, — King's  Burial. — Genirous  Provision  for  his  Family. — Casey  and  tlora  Exe- 
cuted by  the  Vijrilance  t'ouiiiiittee. — Biirial  of  the  Exeeuti'd. — Biily  Mulligan's  Life, 
Dream, ;  nd  Suicide. — Governor  Johnson  asks  for  Feilenil  Arms  in  vain.— The  Com- 
mittee make  some  Im]>ortant  Arrest.-. — Non-ariival  of  the  expected  Jteaction. — Ele- 
ments of  Ujiposition  to  the  Popular  Movement. — A  Law  and  Ordor  Meeting. 

Pages  432— 4M 

( '  II  A  P  T  E  R    XXXI. 

COLLISIOXS    WITH  THE  STA  TE  A  UTIIOUITIES. 

Governor  Johnson  proclaims  San  Fiancisco  in  a  SUile  of  Insurrection. — He  orders  out  the 
Militi:!. — Fort  (iunny-Bags  ereeteil. — t'ilizens  intilion  the  (ioviinor  to  wiihdrnw  l]is 
Proclamation. — He  tiirows  the  Lespoii:  ll/iljty  on  the  "  Insurgents." — (Jeneral  Slierman 
Keslgns  his  Major  Generalslil|(  of  Millti:i.— News  of  Conu'nssoian  Ileibert's  Murdering 
a  Waiter. — Constitution  and  Metl.o.l  of  the  Vigilance  Committee. — lis  .Arms  and  Funds! 
— Meetms  of  Sympathizers — (ireal  \  i;;ilanee  Mass  MeetinL'. — The  Patent  Ballot-Box. 
— Governor  Johnson  ap|ieals  to  l'l•e^i^lent  Pierce  for  Aid,  but  receives  none. 

Pages  45.5 — 472 

C  11  A  P  T  ]J  R     X  X  X  I  I  . 

rilE   VIGILANCE  COMMITTEE  ASSUMES  MORE  DOUBTFUL  POWERS. 

A  C.ise  of  Piracy  alleged. — State  Arms  seized  by  the  Vigilants. — One  of  their  Agents 
stabbed  by  j'udgx  Terry. — A  General  Alarm. — Vigilants  Capture  the  Armories. — Volney 


coirrENTS.  XV 

E.  Howard's  Official  Report  df  Affairs. — Jndcre  Terry  iii  the  Vigilants'  Jail. — Commts- 
sioners  Inmi  Sacram-nf.<»  plcafl  for  him. —  I'he  Governor  Rcpiuliatcs  the  Coiiiinission. — 
Terry's  Friends  in  the  United  States  Senate. — Senators  conwrninj:  the  Visrilanee  Com- 
mittee.— Ubiquitous  MmJowan. — The  Banished  trying  to  return. — Execution  of  Ileth- 
erinitton  and  Draee  by  the  Vi^ilants. — A.  A.  Green  jrets  the  I'ueblo  Papers  by  a  Strat- 
agem.— How  tlie  V^igilants  fcot  ihein  from  him. — Vigilance  licspect  for  Kedeial  Author- 
ities.— Judge  Tcrrydischarged T Pages  47o — 498 

CHAPTER    XXXIII. 

THE  VIGItAyCE  COMMITTEE  DISBAXDS. 

The  Supreme  Court  resumes  Worl^. — The  Vigilance  Committee  preparing  to  surrender 
Power — Danger  of  being  crowded  into  I'olities.— Grand  Final  Parade.— Address  of  the 
Executive  to  the  General  Committee. — Head-Quarters  under  Public  InspectioiL — State 
Arms  retained. — The  "Pirates"  Acquitted. —  The  Rooms  closeil. — Results  of  the  Vigil- 
ance Committee's  Work. — List  «f  the  Executed  and  Banished. — I'opularity  of  the  Move- 
ment.— The  Rev.  Dr.  Scott  in  Trouble. — Members  annoyed  by  Suits. — The  Proclamation 
of  Insurreetion  withdrawn Pages  499 — 517 

CHAPTER    XXXIV. 

PliESERVIXG   TITE  FRUITS  OF  THE  REFORM 

Organization  of  the  People's  Party. — The  Reformed  City  Government. — Better  Times. — 
Comparis  n  of  Muuicipal  iCxjjenses  before  and  after  the  Revolution. — Method  of  the 
People's  i^arty Pages  5iS — o24 

CHAPTER    XXXV. 

FINANCIAL  BREAKERS. 

The  State's  Interest  not  paid. — .\n  Unconstitutional  Debt — Vision  of  Tlireatenijjg  Repu- 
diation.— The  Debt  assumed  by  a  i^>pular  Vote. — Restorasion  of  the  Civil  Fund  to  ihe 
State  refused. — Indian  War  Claim  admitted. — State  and  Local  Debts,  and  what  to  show 
forthem I'asjes  5'25 — 531 

CHAPTER    XXXVI. 

LAND    TITLES. 

Uncertainty  «f  Land  Titles. — CongressionaJ  Legislation  concerning  them. — Board  ftf  Land 
Commissioners.— Suffering  en:aile<l  by  every  Deeison,  Right  or  Wrong. — .Vttorney- 
General  Black's  Sensational  Communication. — Instancesijuoted  by  him  of  Fr.uid  on  a 
grand  Scale. — A  lietter  Era  Dawning Pages  532 — 512 

,   CHAPTER    XXXVII. 

[TTER  PARTY  STRIFES 

Governor  Johnson's  Administration. —  ilie  J't.Ui.  Piibnu  DIttnder. — Bates's  Dt.'alcation. — 
Broderick  is  King  of  Caucus,  and  is  elected  U.  S.  Senator. — Gwiii  and  Latham  aspire 
to  the  vac;int  Seat. — Why  Broderick  gives  it  to  Gwin. — Latham's  Version  of  his  De- 
feat.— Gwin's  Letter  i)roving  the  Bargain  an<l  his  Abasement. — Broderick  breaks  with 
the  Administration. —  The  Fugitive  Slave  Law  tried. — The  Campaign  of  IS.")?. — Brod- 
erick declines  a  Challciigi'. — Uis  first  Stump  Speech. —  Broderick,  Gwin,  and  Latham 
enjoying  great  Freedom  of  S|)eech.— Attitude  ol  the  Republicans. — Greeley's  Advice. — 
Pixley's  Pamphlet. — Latham  wins Patgis  543 — 500 


CHAPTER    XXXVIII 


BRO 

Judge   Terry  challenges    Broderick. — The    thalltfUgB — ArrcTrpTcTr— I'he    DueL — Broderick 
mortally  wounded. — Ilis  Death  and  Burial. — Colunel  Baker's  Eulogy. — Baker's  Life  and 


XXl 


CONTENTS. 


Death.— BroderieIt*s  Will. — Terry's  Resiirnntion.— The  Farce  of  his  Trial.— Notable 
Duels. — Gilbert  killed  by  Denver  in  1S.V2.^G.  Pen  Johnston  kills  Senator  Ferjruson  in 
ISos. — Piercy  killed  by  Showalier  in  ISOl. — Senator  Haun  announces  Broderick's  Death       \ 
to- the  U.  8.  Seuaio Pace.s  561— 571 


liil 


- ^J>OUTI<JAL  REVOL  UTIO;^^-  ---— 

tham  elected  Senator  in  Broderick's  Place. — Governor  Downey  vetoes  the  Bulkhead, 
and  achieves  extraordinary  Popularity. — The  IVater-Krant  Question  hapjjilv  settled. — 
The  State  votes  lor  Lincoln.— LesishUure  of  1^01.— Free  Gilts  of  Itaih'oad  Franchises. 
—General  McDouirall  elected  U.  S.  Senator.— A  llepiiblican  State  Ticket  elected.— The 
islatures  of  ls(i2,  16(5;5^  and  ISO-t Pages  5T2— 581 


ItELATIONS  TO   THE  FEDERAL   GOYERNME-NT. 

Perilous  Position  when  the  Southern  States  besan  to  secede. — A.  Sydney  Johnston,  com- 
manding the  Pacific  Department,  relieved  l>y  General  Sumner. — The  preat  Union 
May  Meeting,  1861.^ — The  Press  and  the  Pulpit  for  Union. — liev.  Dr.  Scott  prefers 
Peace. — Important  Services  of  T.  Starr  Kini.'. — His  Method,  Dx'ath,  and  Burial. — Politi- 
cal Parties  on  the  War. — Downey's  Fatal  Sentence. — Democratic  State  Convention. — 
Edmund  Randolph's  Crazy  Speech. — Stanford  elected  Governor. — G  'vin's  Hypocrisy. — 
Latham  rides  two  Horses,  and  is  thi'own. — McDouf:all  disappoints  the  Union  Men. — 
Conner's  Course. — Party  Organizations  sacriliccd  fir  Union. — Low  elected  Governor. — 
The  Supreme  Court  Judpres. — California's  Contributions  to  the  Arm}'. — Gifts  to  the 
Sanitary  Fund. — The  SiMiilic  Contract  Act. — Adherence  to  a  Metallic  Currency. — Tax- 
ing the  Mines. — Califoniians  in  the  Army  and  Navy. — In  Rebel  Service. — A  California 
Pirate. — Arrests  of  Disloyal  Persons. — General  Wricrht's  prudent  Coairsc. 

Pages  5S2— COO 

CHAPTER    XLI. 

RESOURCES  OF  THE  STATE, 

The  Gold  Yield. — Profit  of  the  various  Modes  of  Mining. — Late  Rushes  «>ut  of  the  State. — 
Loss  of  Population  in  cert:vin  Districts. — Useful  Mineral  Products  of  the  State. — The 
Mining  Slock  Mania,  lsG:J-"4. — An  Irruption  of  Prospecters. — Valuable  Mineral  Dis- 
coveries.— Airriculture. — Manufactures. — E.vports.  and  Imports.— Arrivals  and  Depart- 
xires. — Insolvencies. — ^The  Currency Pages  601 — 610 

CHAPTER    XLI  I. 

Q'lTARRELS  WITH  XA  TrRE.—COMPEXSA  TIOXS  FOR  APPARENT  MISFOR- 

TUXES. 

Earthquakes,  Floods,  and  Drought.— The  flood  of  lS61-"2.— Is  there  any  Danger  of  another 
gufh? — Rainless  Years — Compensation  of  Fires,  Floods,.  Droughts,  and  Rushes. — Much 
of  the  apparent  Loss  a  real  Gain  to  the  Mining  Towns Pa^cs  616 — 627 

CHAPTER    XLI  1 1. 


THE  PEOPLE  AXD    TUE  PROSPECT. 

SnlubritT  of  the  Climate.— What  Diseases  are  not  TTncomiiion.— Society  rapidly  impniving. 
—The  Schools.— Disproportion  of  the  Sexes.— Sabbath  Obsorvance.— The  Dashaways.— 
The  Wine  Question.— Charities. — The  Indian  Remnant. — Failure  of  the  Reservation 
System.— The  Chinese  Puzzle— Communications  with  the  Atlantic  States. — Overland 
jjajl —The  Pony. — Telegraph  across  the  Continent. — Awkward  Task  of  the  Historian. 
—The  State  on  the  Threshold  of  its  Greatness.— Already  a  Mother  of  Ti^rritories  and 
States ' PagesCJS— 044 


THE  HISTORY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 


CHAPTER  1. 

THE  APPROACHES  TO  AND  DISCOVERY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 

It  was  about  half  a  century  after  Columbus  chap. 
found  America  that  tlie  first  discovery  was 
made  of  Upper  California.  It  was  thirty-seven 
years  later  that  the  first  Englishman  set  eyes 
on  its  soil.  Still  later,  by  one  hundred  and 
eighty-nine  years,  the  first  permanent  settlement 
in  it  was  successfully  attempted.  There  was 
not  enouorh  known  of  its  resources  to  attract 
much  attention,  until  the  American  conquest  of 
California,  which  occurred  seventy-eight  years 
later  still,  or  three  hundred  and  fifty-five  years 
after  the  discovery  of  the  New  World. 

The  statement  of  Herodotus,  that  winged 
serpents  guarded  the  cinnamon-trees  of  India, 
though  historically  fabulous,  was  poetically 
true  enough ;  for  though  no  such  fantastic 
creatures  as  the  historian  described  ever  stood 
guard  by  any  tree  of  earthly  growth,  the  dis- 


2  THE   HISTOEY    OF   CALIFOENIA. 

• 

CHAP,  eases  that  hover  over  the  spice-gardens  on  the 
^___^  verge  of  tropical  jungles  were  scarcely  less  dan- 
gerous objects  to  encounter  than  winged  ser- 
pents would  have  been.  The  dragons  that  so 
long  protected  from  plunder  or  enjoyment  the 
depositories  of  our  California  gold,  the  bound- 
less opulence  of  our  Pacific  resources,  commer- 
cial, agricultural,  and  mineral,  were  the  reports 
carried  back  to  Spain  and  England  by  succes- 
sive navigators  of  intense  cold  in  these  middle 
latitudes,  and  of  storms  perpetually  raging 
along  our  coast ;  the  concealment  of  our  har- 
bors under  thick  and  frightful  fogs,  behind 
reefs  of  outlying  rocks  or  sand-bars,  over  which 
the  breakers  seemed  to  make  a  continuous 
breach ;  on  the  east,  a  sturdier  dragon  still  de- 
fied approach — desert  wastes,  and  impassable 
mountains  of  great  breadth,  whose  frosty  peaks 
and  ridges  were  unbroken,  except  at  far-distant 
passes,  that  only  the  most  careful  search  re- 
vealed. Durino-  the  course  of  three  centuries 
the  unceasing  demand  for  safe  harbors  along 
the  coast,  the  fact  that  pirates  nestled  in  its 
sparse  bays  to  the  terror  of  lawful  traders,  sto- 
ries of  pearls  in  the  rivers  and  gold  in  the  soil, 
the  sharp  rivaby  of  emj^ires  conflicting  for 
wider  possessions,  the  assurance  that  whoever 
enjoyed  its  ports  would  control  the  avenues  of 
the  rich  commerce  of  the  Indies — all  these  mo- 
tives conspired  in  vain  to  tempt  to  its  thorough 


DISCOVERY    OF   CALIFOElSriA.  3 

exploration  and  settlement.    It  will  never  cease  chap. 
to  be  a  wonder   how,  so   long   after   it  was 
mapped,  such  a  land  lay  hidden  and  almost  for-    1500. 
gotten,  while  explorers  rummaged  all  corners  of 
the  earth  beside,  and  dragged  the  sea  for  fresh 
prizes  in  the  domain  of  Geography. 

It  was  some  years  after  the  great  Genoese 
found  his  new  world  before  geographers  com- 
prehended that  there  was  room  enough  on  the 
globe  for  the  land  of  which  we  write.  When 
Columbus  argued  to  the  professors  of  Sala- 
manca his  pet  and  prolific  theory  of  the  rotun- 
dity of  the  earth,  the  wisest  of  them  did  not 
dispute  its  truth  ;  but  he  shared  with  them  the 
error  of  allowing  too  little  length  for  a  degree 
of  longitude.  In  consequence,  he  looked  in  the 
vicinity  of  Florida  for  Marco  Polo's  famous 
Island  of  Cipango — the  Japan  of  our  maps ; 
and  the  best  charts  of  his  day  advanced  the 
eastern  boundary  of  Cathay  or  China  as  far 
east  as  the  Sandmch  IslaudsT  So,  when  he 
came  across  the  islands  that  picket  the  West- 
ern Continent,  he  had  no  doubt  that  he  was 
near  the  threshold  of  the  Eastern.  When  he 
had  coasted  scores  of  leagues  along  the  south- 
ern shore  of  Cuba,  and  the  crazy  condition  of 
his  ships  and  his  disheartened  men  made  it 
necessary  for  him  to  turn  to  the  eastward  again, 
he  took  the  sworn  statements  of  all  on  board 
his  fleet,  from  the  captain  to  the  ship-boy,  in 


4  THE    niSTOEY    OF   CALIFOEjS'IA. 

CHAP,  confirmation  of  Ms  own  opinion  tliat  they  had 
visited  the  eastern  extremity  of  Asia.     On  liis 

1502.  fourth  voyage  to  America,  in  1502,  he  diligent- 
ly searched  from  the  Bay  of  Honduras  to  Porto 
Bello,  for  the  strait  that  the  Spanish  geograph- 
ers believed  must  communicate  between  the 
Gulf  of  Mexico  and  a  sea  lying  to  the  west- 
ward. But  no  such  coveted  outlet  could  he 
find,  and  he  died  firm  in  the  faith  that  in  cross- 
ing the  Atlantic  he  had  navigated  the  only 
ocean  that  divided  the  western  edge  of  Europe 
from  the  eastern  fringe  of  Asia.  But  as  suc- 
ceeding explorers  pried  into  and  retreated  from 
each  laro-e  river's  mouth  alono;  the  northern 
shore,  investigated  the  whole  curve  of  the  Mex- 
ican Gulf,  sought  along  the  Caribbean  Sea  and 
up  the  broad  La  Plata,  but  everywhere  in  vain, 
for  an  opening  westward,  the  islands,  that  most 
had  held  the  new  lands  to  be,  grew  beyond 
controversy  into  a  continent — but  not  the  East- 
«  ern  Continent,  for  the  natives  everywhere  per- 
sisted in  the  story  that  to  the  westward  (and 
many  of  them  said,  not  fai'  off)  lay  an  ocean. 
It  piqued  the  chart-makers  and  the  hardy  navi- 
gators alike  that  it  could  not  be  reached. 

151  o.  That  honor  was  not  Ions;  reserved  for  Balboa, 
a  noble  Spaniard,  who  had  settled  with  a  colony 
of  gold-seekers  at  Darien.  In  the  year  1513 
his  guides  took  him  to  the  top  of  a  mountain, 
whence  they  told  him  that  both  seas  might  be 


DISCOVERY   OF   THE   SOUTH    SEA.  5 

seen.     Pushing  up  to  its  summit,  he  found  it  as  chap. 
they  had  said.     When  the  vision  of  a  limitless  _^_, 
expanse  of  waters  to  the  south  met  his  gaze,    1513. 
he  feir  on  his  knees,  and,  with  uplifted  hands, 
thanked  Heaven  for  the  honor  of  being  the 
first  European  that  had  beheld  "  the  sea  be- 
yqnd  America."    Then  descending  to  the  shore, 
he  waded  waist  deep  into  the  water,  and  took 
possession  of  it,  and  all  the  lands  it  washed, 
for  Spain. 

But  the  first  European  to  sail  on  the  waters 
of  Balboa's  "  South  Sea  beyond  America  "  was 
Fernando  Magellan.  This  zealous  and  courage- 
ous Portuguese  navigator  had  sailed  as  far  east 
as  the  Malay  Islands,  where  his  countrymen 
were  slowly  effecting  a  settlement.  But  be- 
coming dissatisfied  with  the  remuneration  he 
was  receiving  for  his  services,  he  went  over  to 
Spain,  and  without  much  difficulty  convinced 
the  court,  inflamed  by  reports  of  the  mines 
in  Mexico,  where  about  that  time  Cortez  was  ■ 
urging  his  imperial  conquests,  that  the  coveted 
Spice  Islands  might  be  reached  by  sailing  west- 
ward. There  was  a  famous  compact  then  ex- 
isting l)etween  those  maritime  rivals,  that  what- 
ever new  lands  might  be  discovered  beyond 
the  meridian  one  hundred  and  eighty  degrees 
west  of  the  Azores,  should  belong  to  Spain ; 
and  all  east  of  that  line  were  to  be  the  prop- 
erty of  Portugal.     Spain  could  not  resist  the 


6  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFOENIA. 

(MAP.  temptation  to  gain  a  point  by  iutiigue  when 
,___,  projected  on  so  grand  a  scale,  and  Magellan 
1520.  was  speedily  dispatched  Avitli  five  small  ves- 
sels to  come  up  by  a  westward  route  behind 
the  Portuguese  possessions  in  the  Malay  Ar- 
chipelago ;  and  so,  while  adhering  to  the  letter 
of  the  compact,  to  obtain  a  claim  to  that  gar- 
den of  the  East  which,  without  a  question, 
the  compact  was  intended  to  secure  to  Portu- 
gal- 

Arrived  oif  the  South  American  main,  Ma- 
gellan left  no  gulf  or  inlet  unexplored  that 
promised  an  opening  westward.  On  the  21st 
of  October,  1520,  he  entered  the  strait  between 
the  mainland  and  the  Island  of  Tierra  del  Fue- 
go,  which  he  named  "  The  Strait  of  Ten  Thou- 
sand Virgins,"  but  which,  ever  since,  has  been 
known  as  the  Straits  of  Magellan.  He  was 
sixty  days  threading  this  channel,  crooked  and 
thick-set  with  islands.  Behind  every  headland 
*that  he  passed  a  new  creek  opened  or  a  new 
river  emptied.  The  tide  rose  and  fell  thirty 
feet.  The  water  rushed  backward  and  forward 
like  a  torrent.  The  overhano-ino:  cliffs  were 
capped  with  snow,  yet  a  flaming  mountain — so 
they  reported — was  generall}^  in  sight  on  the 
south.  At  last  from  this  hon-id  place  his  little 
fleet  emerged  into  an  open  sea,  so  calm,  so  gen- 
tle, so  unlike  the  turbulent  Atlantic,  that  he 
named  it  the  Pacific.     Once  upon  its  bosom, 


COETEZ    OX   THE    PACIFIC    COAST.  7 

liis  course  lay  westward  towards  the  Philip-  chap. 
pines.  Northward  of  his  track  no  one  yet  had  ,,___, 
sailed  on  all  this  ocean.  1521. 

But  Cortez  (in  1521)  had  completed  the 
conquest  of  Mexico,  and  from  the  capital 
to  both  oceans  the  Spanish  dominion  was  ac- 
knowledged. It  was  with  no  little  curiosity 
that  he  awaited  the  return  of  the  explorers  he 
had  sent  out  to  find  the  western  border  of  his 
New  Spain.  The  next  year  he  had  the  pleas- 
ure of  announcing  to  his  emperor  that  his 
agents  had  in  three  places  discovered  the  South 
Sea.  The  responsive  command  to  explore  both 
coasts  for  an  opening  between  the  oceans,  he 
welcomed  as  a  relief  from  the  languor  that 
began  to  annoy  him.  It  was  comparatively 
an  easy  task  to  scour  the  eastern  coast  from 
Panama  to  Florida.  But  on  the  west  he  had 
work  worthy  of  his  genius ;  for,  first  of  all, 
there  were  his  harbors  to  find,  then  his  ships 
to  build,  and  then  a  sea  of  unknown  perils  to 
navigate,  which  as  yet  no  keel  had  ever  vexed. 

But,  to  a  man  like  Cortez,  difficulties  are  a 
spur,  and  repeated  failures  are  sharp  incentives. 
He  fitted  ship  after  ship,  and  sometimes  fleets 
of  them,  determined  to  know  not  only  what 
sort  of  face  the  land  he  had  conquered  pre- 
sented to  the  west,  but  also  to  be  sure  that  no 
strait  were  left  undiscovered,  north  or  south, 
by  which  Spain  might  reach  the  Spice  Islands 


8  THE   IIISTOKY   OF    CALIFORXIA. 

CHAP,  without  doiil)lIng  tlie  Cape  of  Good  Hope; 
^_^^;^  and  it  was  liis  special  purpose  to  inspect  defi- 
1534,  nitely  tlie  stormy  channel  through  the  conti- 
nent where  Magellan  had  passed  from  ocean  to 
ocean.  In  1534,  one  of  his  men,  a  mutineer 
and  murderer,  discovered  Lower  California,  and 
was  murdered  there.  Cortez  had  given  to  Be- 
cerra  the  command  of  one  of  two  ships  that 
were  sent  out  to  learn  the  fate  of  a  missing 
vessel  of  a  previous  expedition.  Becerra's  crew 
mutinied  under  the  lead  of  the  pilot,  Ximenes, 
a  native  of  Biscay,  who  continued  the  voyage, 
crossed  the  Gulf  of  California,  and  landed. 
While  near  the  hay  afterwards  known  as  La 
Paz,  Ximenes  and  twenty  of  his  Spaniards  were 
killed  by  the  Indians.  The  vessel,  however, 
returned,  with  a  good  report  of  the  country,  its 
people,  and  its  pearls. 

During  the  same  year,  Cortez,  seeking  for 
the  Moluccas,  which  he  thought  to  be  no  great 
distance  off,  conducted  in  person  an  exploring 
expedition  to  the  north.  He  left  Tehuantepec 
with  four  ships ;  three  of  these  were  soon 
stranded  alouo;  the  coast.  The  one  in  which 
he  himself  sailed  reached  the  gulf  and  the 
peninsula.  From  that  time  the  Gulf  of  Cali- 
fornia was  known  as  the  "Sea  of  Cortez;" 
though  when,  soon  afterwards,  it  was  more 
explored,  it  gained  the  name  of  the  Bed  or 
Vermilion  Sea:  perhaps  from  some  resemblance 


LOWEE    GALIFOENIA    DISCOVERED.  9 

of  its  outline  to  the  Eed  Sea  that  separates  chap. 
Egypt  from  Ai^abia ;  perhaps  from  the  color  of  ^_^_^ 
its  waters  near  its  head,  as  seen  after  the  Colo-    1534. 
rado  had  dis2:oro:ed  into  it  a  torrent  more  than 
usually  turbid.     Cortez  hoped  to  plant  a  colony 
on  the  peninsula ;  but  the  discontent  that  grew 
out  of  the  sufferings  of  the  little  company  from 
famine,  from  excesses  when  relief  came,   and 
from  repulses  by  the  Indians,  made  him  glad 
to  hear  the  appeals  from  Mexico  for  succor, 
that  gave  him  an  excuse  to  retreat  from  his 
undertaking  and  return. 

In  1537  he  dispatched  three  ships,  under  1537. 
Francisco  de  Ulloa,  v/ho  entered  the  Gulf  of 
California,  explored  it  to  its  extremity,  then 
doubling  the  Cape,  went  up  the  western  coast 
of  the  peninsula  to  about  the  twenty-ninth 
degree  of  north  latitude.  Ulloa,  after  a  year's 
absence,  brought  back  accounts  of  a  bare  vol- 
canic land,  peopled  by  poor  men — of  "  no  coun- 
try, in  short,  worthy  the  second  visit."  And 
now  the  conqueror's  conceit  of  rich  islands  and 
vast  territories  of  unbounded  wealth  was  quite 
deserting  him.  For  all  his  princely  outlays  he 
was  reaping  no  profits  either  of  glory  or  of 
gold. 

But  that  very  year  Mexico  enjoyed  a  fresh 
sensation.  Of  three  hundred  Spaniards,  Avho, 
ten  years  before,  landed  in  Florida  to  conquer 
it,    four    suiwivors    wandered    across    to    Cu- 


10  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFOENIA. 

CHAP,  liacan,  whence  they  were  sent  to  the  capital. 
There  they  told  such  stories  of  the  pearls  and 

1537.  other  riches  that  abounded  on  the  coast  of  the 
South  Sea,  that  all  Mexico  was  fired  for  explo- 
rations. Cortez  and  the  Viceroy  Mendoza,  with 
equal  zeal,  sprang  to  new  enterj)rises.  But  the 
projects  of  the  two  were  irreconcilable,  and  the 
star  of  the  viceroy  was  in  the  ascendant.  Cor- 
tez remained  chafing  at  home,  harassed  by  the 
lawyers,  while  the  viceroy  perfected  his  ar- 
rangements to  send  off,  for  the  conquest  of  "  the 
countries  and  islands  north  of  Mexico,"  an  army 
of  a  thousand  men  by  land,  and  another  by 
sea.  Orders  were  given  for  the  two  armaments 
to  meet  in  latitude  thirty-six.  The  land  forces 
penetrated  northward  by  way  of  Sinaloa  and 
Sonora  to  where  they  found  seven  wretched 
towns,  with  a  population  in  the  largest  one  of 
but  four  hundred  men.  The  houses,  though 
constructed  of  earth  and  unhewn  logs,  were 
occasionally  of  several  stories  in  height.  These 
places  they  identified  as  "  the  seven  large  towns, 
inhabited  l)y  civilized  nations,  with  mountains 
round  about,  rich  in  metals  and  gems,"  and 
"  the  large  town  of  Quivira,  with  houses  seven 
stories  high,  celebrated  for  its  riches,"  ^vhich  a 
zealous  Franciscan  had  reported  to  exi^t,  and 
oiT  whose  representations  as  much  as  on  those 
of  the  Florida  wanderers  the  ex2:)edition  was 
founded.     In  three  years  the  inland  army  re- 


DISCOVERY    OF    CALIFORIS'IA.  11 

turned,  sick,  tliiuned,  and  disheartened,  report-  chap. 
ing  a  country  barely  tolerable,  and  but  narrow-  ,_^^_^ 
ly  removed  from  the  character  of  a  desert.  1540. 
Meanwhile  the  fleet  had  achieved  the  disgrace 
of  its  commander  by  a  very  speedy  return  with- 
out the  slightest  advantage  gained.  They  went, 
according  to  account,  to  the  appointed  place  on 
the  thirty-sixth  degree  of  north  latitude,  which 
would  have  l)een  up  the  Colorado  River,  above 
the  Mohave  Indian  country  ;  they  erected  some 
crosses,  buried  some  bottles  containing  letters, 
and  then  went  back  ao-ain.  As  we  hear  noth- 
ing  further  of  this  landing  in  so  high  a  latitude, 
as  it  was  not  spoken  of  as  a  point  beyond  pre- 
ceding explorations,  and  as  the  commander  of 
the  fleet  was  disgraced,  it  is  probable  that  there 
was  some  mistake  about  it,  though  that  Alarcon 
was  the  discoverer  of  the  mouth  of  the  Colo- 
rado, about  the  year  1540,  is  not  disputed. 

Cortez  now  embarked  for  Sixain,  never  to  re- 
turn. Before  he  left,  however,  he  saw  himself 
deserted  by  one  who  had  always  followed  his 
fortunes.  Pedro  de  Alvarado,  ambitious  of 
rivalling  Cortez  as  an  explorer,  having  asked 
of  the  emperor  and  received  a  commission,  con- 
tracted for  the  building  of  twelve  ships,  a  gal- 
ley, and  some  smaller  vessels,  and  for  their  thor- 
ough outfit  with  men,  horses,  arms,  and  pro- 
visions. To  make  his  enterprise  more  sure,  he 
allied  himself  with  Mendoza,  the  viceroy,  but 


12  THE- HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA.  ' 

CHAP,  sufferina:  death  at  the  hands  of  the  Indians, 

I  •        • 

^_^^_^  whom  he  had  cruelly  oppressed,  his  ships  were 

1540.  left  to  rot  iu  their  harbors,  until  Mendoza  re- 
fitted a  portion  of  them,  two  of  which  he  sent, 
under  Juan  Rodriguez  Cabrillo,  a  native  of  Por- 
tugal, to  explore  the  western  coast  of  California. 

1542.  Cabrillo  left  Natividad  June  27,  1542.  He 
touched  on  the  peninsula  of  Lower  California, 
ran  up  the  coast,  and  often  landed  to  question 
the  docile  Indians.  In  the  Santa  Barbara  re- 
gion he  saw  large  houses,  and  being  told  by 
the  natives  that  in  the  interior  there  lived 
white  men,  he  wrote  those  white  men  a  letter, 
and  gave  it  to  the  Indians  to  be  forwarded. 
When  about  on  the  fortieth  degree  of  latitude, 
he  saw  mountains  covered  with  snow,  and  be- 
tween them  a  large  cape,  which  he  called  De 
Mendoza  (Mendocino),  in  honor  of  the  viceroy. 

1543.  On  the  10th  of  March,  1543,  when  in  forty-four 
degrees,  the  cold  l)eing  very  intense,  his  provi- 
sions exhausted,  and  his  ships  in  bad  condition, 
he  turned  southward  again,  and  sailed  back  to- 
wards Natividad. 

The  value  of  this  expedition  lay  simply  in 
the  information  it  brouo-ht  back  of  the  trend 
and  direction  of  the  coast.  Cabrillo  fetched 
home  no  account  of  snug  harbors,  or  of  places 
proper  to  plant  colonies  in ;  indeed,  the  impor- 
tant geographical  facts  of  his  discovery  seem 
to  have  been  soon  forgotten.     The  date  which 


DISCOVERY    OF    CALIFOKNIA.  13 

marked  an  era — the  starting  date,  indeed,  in  Cal-  chap. 
ifornia  history — was  no  era  to  the  cotemporaries 
of  Cabrillo.  The  viceroy  sent  out  no  succeed-  1543. 
ing  expeditions.  Being  soon  afterwards  pro- 
moted to  the  viceroyalty  of  Peru,  he  had  little 
further  opportunity  to  extend  his  researches; 
and  the  solitary  enterprise  of  his  successor  in 
that  direction  proved  a  perfect  failure.  The 
efforts  that  had  been  j^ut  forth  Avith  so  little 
profit  for  twenty  years,  to  learn  the  configura- 
tion of  the  western  coast  of  America,  were  in- 
termitted for  more  than  half  a  century. 

The  meaning  of  the  word  California,  and 
how  it  came  to  be  applied  to  the  land  we  live 
in,  is  not  to  this  day  a  settled  matter.  Vene- 
gas,  tbe  Jesuit  historian,  thinks  that  some 
words  of  the  Indians  having  a  sound  similar 
to  it,  were  mistaken  ,by  the  Spaniards  as  the 
designation  for  the  country,  though  investiga- 
tion showed  that  the  Indians  did  not  so  call  it. 
Others  have  supposed  or  guessed  that  the  name 
was  deliberately  framed  by  the  Spaniards  from 
the  Latin  calida  fornax — a  hot  furnace.  But 
this  is  improbable,  as  the  Sj)aniards  were  not 
in  the  habit  of  manufacturing  names  by  any 
such  classical  process ;  nor  were  men  who  were 
used  to  the  heat  of  Acapulco  likely  to  speak 
of  any  portion  of  California  as  a  furnace,  in  com- 
parison with  that  oven  of  cities. 

The  name  first  appears  in  the  account  writ- 


14  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  ten  by  Bernal  Diaz,  of  one  of  Cortez's  expedi- 
tions, lie  applying  it  only  to  the  gulf.     From 

1543.  this  it  seems  to  have  spread  to  include  all  of 
the  region  that  Spain  claimed  northward  of 
Mexico  on  the  Pacific,  or  west  of  the  Gulf 
of  California. 

If  a  geographer  of  the  time  of  Cabrillo  had 
attempted, to  bound  the  region  known  as  Cali- 
fornia, he  would  have  said  that  it  extended 
from  the  Vermilion  Sea  of  Cortez  and  the 
ocean  on  the  south,  northward  past  Cape  Men- 
docino, to  the  Straits  of  Anian,  which  separate 
America  from  the  confines  of  Tartary;  that 
eastward  it  was  bounded  by  Canada,  and  on 
the  southeast  by  a  wild  desert  tract  that  cut 
off  access  to  it  from  New  Spain,  above  the  ter- 
mination of  the  Vermilion  Sea. 


FEANCIS   DEAKE   IN   CALIFORNIA.  15 


CHAPTER  11. 

4  NOTABLE  ENGLISHMAN  IN  CALIFORNIA. 

Hitherto  there  liad  been  three  great  induce- 
ments for  prosecuting  explorations  in  the  North- 
ern Pacific :  First,  a  desire  to  find  a  route  from 
Europe  to  the  Indies,  the  Straits  of  Magellan 
being  the  only  water  passage  yet  known,  and 
a  return  through  them  from  west  to  east  being 
industriously  represented  as  quite  impractica- 
ble. Second,  the  hope  of  finding  rich  regions 
that  would  rival  the  Spice  Islands  in  the  prod- 
ucts of  their  forests,  and  the  mines  of  Mex- 
ico in  precious  metals.  Third,  the  ardent  zeal 
of  the  Catholic  sovereigns,  inspired  alike  by 
policy  and  piety,  to  convert  the  heathen  and 
give  unknow^n  nations  to  the  Church.  But  now 
a  new  motive  was  added.  A  rich  trade  be- 
tween the  Philippine  Islands  and  Spain  was 
sj)ringing  up.  Every  year  a  great  galleon  from 
the  Malaysian  Archipelago  crossed  the  Pacific 
to  Acapulco,  whence  its  freight  was  conveyed 
either  to  Panama  or  across  the  continent  to 
Vera  Cruz.  To  avoid  the  easterly  trade-winds, 
this  galleon  made  the  coast  of  America  as  far 


1543. 


16  THE    HISTORY    OF    CALIFOENIA. 

CHAP,  north  as  Cabrillo's  Cape  Mendocino,  where  the 
___,  northwest  wdnds  ^veve  generally  blow'lng,  and 
1578.  from  which  point  there  was  still  a  long  voyage 
of  some  eighteen  hundred  miles  to  Acapulco, 
with  no  known  harbors  on  the  "way  into  which 
she  might  put  on  emergency  for  supplies  or 
repaii's. 

Then  there  were  the  Straits  of  Anian,  much 
talked  of  by  mariners  and  believed  in  by  geog- 
ra^^hers,  which  were  supposed  to  separate  Asia 
and  America ;  and  the  fancy  was  that  they  led 
eastward  to  the  Atlantic,  somewhere  about 
jS^ewfoundland.  Suppose  the  Engiish,  who 
were  beginning  to  be  a  threatening  power  on 
the  sea,  should  force  that  upper  passage  and 
some  fine  morning  appear  with  a  fleet  off  Aca- 
pulco or  Panama !  What  was  to  hinder  their 
taking  any  port  they  pleased,  or  snatching  all 
the  plunder  of  captured  galleon  or  sacked 
cities  that  they  had  the  heart  to  cov^et  or  the 
ships  to  carry  away  ?  Or  if  thei'e  exist  pro- 
found peace  between  England  and  Spain,  the 
latter  had  not  a  single  settlement  north  of  Cu- 
liacan,  and  the  doctrine  was  not  then  admitted, 
any  more  than  now,  that  the  planting  of  a  cross 
in  a  land  conferred  a  title  to  it  that  the  next 
squatter  sovereign  could  not  cloud  the  day  he 
took  possession.  As  the  Spaniards  debated, 
the  shadow  of  what  they  most  dreaded  stalked 
in  upon  them. 


DRAKE    OIS^   THE   PACIFIC.  17 

England  and  Spain  were  at  peace,  but  no  chap. 
love  was  lost  between  them.  Queen  Elizabeth 
had  no  hesitation  in  smiling  upon  the  under-  1573. 
takings  of  Francis  Drake,  who,  ''  on  his  own 
account,  "syas  playing  the  seaman  and  the  pi- 
rate," "had  got  a  pretty  store  of  money  to- 
gether," was  fast  earning  the  name  of  "  Sea- 
King,"  and  already  "  was  very  terrible  to  all 
Spaniards."  On  his  third  voyage  to  the  West 
Indies  and  the  Spanish  Main,  he  was  led  to 
"  that  goodlie  and  great  high  tree  "  on  the  Isth- 
mus of  Panama,  from  which  both  oceans  are 
visible  at  the  same  time. 

As  lie  looked  out  on  the  vision  that  had  so 
affected  Balboa  sixty  years  before,  he  was  "  ve- 
hemently transported  with  desire  to  navigate 
the  South  Sea ;  and  falling  down  there  upon 
his  knees,  he  implored  the  Divine  assistance 
that  he  mio^ht  at  some  time  or  other  sail  thither 
and  make  a  perfect  discovery  of  the  same,  and 
hereunto  he  bound  himself  Avith  a  vow.  From 
that  time  forward  his  mind  was  pricked  on  con- 
tinually, night  and  day,  to  perform  his  vow." 

Five  years  later  he  set  sail  again,  with  great 
secrecy,  for  America,  his  fleet  consisting  of  five 
vessels ;  the  largest  of  one  hundred,  the  small- 
est of  fifteen  tons!  His  own  "shij)"  was 
named  the  Pelican :  but  afterwards  s-loried  in 
the  designation  of  the   Golden  Hind.     Three 

of  the  fi\'e  survived  to  enter  the  Straits  of  Ma- 
2 


18  THE    HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  gellan,  wliicli  they  threaded  in  the  course  of  six- 
J^  teen  days.  This  was  in  the  fall  of  1578.  They 
1578.  found  "what  they  call  the  Pacific,  or  Calm 
Sea,''  whip2^ed  into  fury  by  a  tempest.  The 
storm  separated  the  adventurous  vessels,  and 
the  Pelican  it  drove  as  far  south  as  the  fifty- 
seventh  deo-ree  of  latitude.  Nearly  two  months 
she  was  hurled  l)ackwards  and  forwards  about 
Cape  Horn.  Drake  plainly  made  out  that  here 
the  continent  was  at  an  end — that  the  Atlan- 
tic and  Pacific  met.  Here,  then,  was  a  route, 
not  an  inviting  one  indeed,  yet  one  that  ships 
raiirht  take  to  return  from  the  Pacific  towards 
Europe.  It  was  a  discovery  of  great  value,  for 
though  by  the  time  he  made  it  a  lost  one  of 
his  own  fleet  had  forced  a  passage  eastward 
through  the  Straits  of  Magellan,  he  had  ac- 
cepted as  true  the  Spaniard's  doctrine  that  such 
a  thing  was  scarcely  possible ;  and  no  A^onder, 
as  to  this  day,  for  sail-vessels,  it  is  not  often 
deemed  practicable. 

After  waiting  duly  for  his  delinquent  ves- 
sels, Drake  pushed  northward  in  the  Golden 
Hind  alone.  Off  Arica,  in  the  harbor  of  Cal- 
lao,  and  elsewhere,  he  plundered  ship  after  shij:) 
of  its  silver,  silks,  and  costly  gums.  He  cap- 
tured the  great  galleon  and  appropriated  her 
treasure,  avoided  Panama,  paused  at  x\capulco, 
and  refitted  during  a  single  day. 

But  when  the  Golden  Jlind  ^^■as  irettino;  over- 


THE   CLIMATE    REVILED.  19 

burdened  with  her  precious  freight,  the  ques-  chap. 
tion  grew  troublesome,  "  What  should  he  do 
with  it?"  He  had  no  fancy  for  Cape  Horn,  i579. 
though  that  tedious  way  had  no  such  teiTor  for 
mariners  a  century  later,  as  his  name  had  at 
that  time  for  all  that  sailed.  He  did  not  doubt  if 
he  retui'ned,  that  he  would  find  a  Spanish  fleet 
waiting  off  the  Straits  of  Magellan  to  sink  him. 
As  he  had  seen  the  oceans  meet  at  the  South,  he 
believed  they  must  meet,  too,  at  the  North.  It 
suited  his  adventurous  spirit  to  slip  away  from 
his  enemies  l)y  a  I'oad  they  never  had  heard  of, 
and  sail  back  into  some  old  English  bay,  laden 
with  a  grand  discovery,  as  well  as  with  gold 
and  silver,  pearls  and  spices,  from  the  Orient. 

Home,  by  a  northeast  passage,  then,  was  his 
determination,  and  he  soon  found  himself  ofl' 
the  coast  of  California  in  exceedingly  cold 
weather.  The  Rev,  Mr.  Fletcher,  chaplain  of 
the  buccaneer's  fleet,  writes  a  distressing  ac- 
count of  the  inclemency  of  this  wretched  coast. 
If  it  had  l)een  his  misfortune  actually  to  enter 
the  Arctic  Ocean,  where  our  bold  whalers  now- 
a-days  rather  like  to  summer,  and  occasionally 
even  winter,  he  would  have  suffered  from  an 
exhaustion  of  his  vocabulary  of  freezing  adjec- 
tives before  reaching  Behring's  Straits. 

On  the  3d  of  June,  1579,  in  latitude  forty- 
two — that  is,  the  southern  line  of  Oregon — the 
crew  complained  grievously  of  "  nipping  cold ;" 


20  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

(;hap.  the  rigging  was  stiff,  the  rain  was  frozen.     In 
^^'     hititude  forty-four — that  is,  off  Umjoqua  City — 
1579.   their   hands    were   benumbed,   the   meat   was 
frozen  when  it  was  taken  from  the  fire ! 

On  the  5th  of  June  they  ran  in  sliore,  and 
cast  anchor  in  a  bad  bay,  where,  when  the  tbick, 
vile  fogs  lifted,  they  were  not  without  danger 
from  violent  gusts  and  flaws  of  wind.  Finding 
it  no  place  to  stay,  they  got  to  sea  again  as 
soon  as  possible.  It  was  probably  here,  if  the 
story  which  the  Spanish  historians  tell  is  true, 
that  he  left  behind  him  his  Spanish  pilot,  Mo- 
rera,  who  afterwards  made  his  way  overland 
down  to  Mexico ;  and  a  hard  pedestrian  excur- 
sion he  must  have  found  it — that  first  white 
man  toilino;  thronsfh  thirty-five  himdred  miles 
or  so  of  strange  territory,  the  amazement  of  a 
land  full  of  savages. 

Drake  and  his  companions  would  seem  to 
have  gone  as  high  as  forty-eight  degrees,  and 
then  to  have  been  driven  southward  by  a  wind 
that  they  could  not  face.  In  thirt}--eight  degrees 
they  found  a  fit  harbor,  though  there  the  low 
hills  were  covered  with  snow,  entered  it,  and 
tarried  thirty-six  days. 

iVow  it  is  possible  that  the  Golden  Hind  hap- 
pened along  our  coast  when  our  usually  charm- 
ing weather  was  "not  at  home."  Such  mis- 
haps have  occurred  before  now,  that  a  climate 
has  lost  reputation  because,  at  just  the  time 


THE    CLIMATE   OF   CALIFORNIA.  21 

when  an  observer  was  prepared  to  note  it,  botli  chap. 

barometer  and  tbermometer  agreed  to  depre-  , ' 

eiate  its  average  excellence.     It  may  j^ossibly    i.jT'j. 
have  been  a  cold  June  that  "  tlie  oldest  inhab- 
itant "  among  the  natives  told  of  for  half  a  cen- 
tury afterwards. 

But  another  explanation  is  quite  as  probable. 
The  Golden  Hind  had  been  for  months  loiter- 
ing in  the  tropics.  To  men  just  emerging  from 
the  soft,  southern  gales,  the  winds  of  our  tem- 
perate zone,  though  charged  with  only  frost 
enough  to  make  them  bracing  and  grateful  to 
the  acclimated,  are  rasping.  Drake's  crew^  had 
no  relish  for  the  northern  passage,  no  taste  for 
rugged  w^eather,  and  in  their  dread  they  met  it 
half  ^vay.  Then  Shasta  and  the  Oregon  moun- 
tain peaks,  generally  capped  with  snow  in  early 
summer,  quickened  their  sensitiveness,  and 
made  them  verily  believe  that  they  had  prema- 
turely confronted  an  Arctic  clime. 

Fletcher's  excessive  caution  to  prevent  such 
a  conclusion,  itself  suggests  its  probability.  He 
argues  the  causes  of  the  extreme  cold,  and  an- 
ticipates the  objection  that  they  felt  it  the 
more  from  their  recent  arrival  from  equatorial 
regions.  The  general's  admirable  regimen,  he 
says,  secured  them  from  any  possible  suffering 
on  account  of  sudden  transitions  of  lines  of 
latitude;  and  then  he  speaks  contemptuously 
of  5^oiu'  "  chamber  company,  whose  teeth  in  a 


22  THE   5IST0EY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  temperate  air  do  beat  in  their  heads  at  a  cup 
^'__,  of  cold  sack  and  sugar  by  the  fire."  The 
1579.  sprightl}^  chaplain  had  the  whole  story  to  him- 
self: there  "were  no  previously  written  accounts 
for  his  to  conflict  ^vith,  and  it  must  be  admit- 
ted that  he  made  a  good  apology,  and  all  the 
more  plausible  for  being  indirect,  for  the  aban- 
donment by  Drake  of  his  deliberately  formed 
purpose  to  go  home  to  England  by  the  Straits 
of  Anian. 

Those  much-talked-of  Straits,  we  know,  as 
happily  for  our  curiosity  they  did  not,  lead  up 
to  a  frozen  ocean  which,  may  as  well,  for  all 
commercial  purposes,  have  no  connection  with 
Atlantic  waters.  Drake  troubled  his  head  no 
more  about  them,  for  on  leaving  the  California 
coast  the  Golden  Hind  steered  for  the  Philip- 
pines, and  so,  by  the  way  of  the  Cape  of  Good 
Hope,  went  back  to  Europe — the  first  craft  that 
ever  made  the  circuit  of  the  globe  with  the 
same  commander  on  board  who  took  her  out 
of  port. 

Drake  named  all  the  land  he  had  seen  here- 
abouts JVew  Alhiony  the  white  clifts  reminding 
him  of  his  native  coasts,  and  suggesting  the 
happy  compliment  that  his  loyalty  seconded. 
English  books  after  that  spoke  of  New  Albion 
as  "  Drake's  land,  back  of  Canada." 

But  where  is  the  bay  that  Captain  Drake — it 
was  later  that  he  was  knighted  and  was  caDed  Sir 


DEAKE   IN    SAN    FEANCISCO    BAY.  23 

Francis — spent  those  tliirty-six  days  in?  Yfhere  chap. 
is  the  quiet  nook  so  shielded  from  raw  winds,  ,_^_ 
so  free  of  fogs  and  gusts,  so  altogether  pleasant    1570. 
and  secure  that  even  Chaplain  Fletcher,  with 
his  bones  aching  from  past  cold,  has  for  it  no 
word  of  abuse  ? 

From  time  immemorial,  until  lately,  it  was 
presumed  to  be  San  Francisco.  But  Humboldt, 
in  correction  of  the  common  belief,  remarked 
that  Drake's  port  was  farther  north,  under  the 
parallel  of  38°  10',  and  was  called  by  the  Span- 
iards Puerto  de  Bodega.  Later  writers,  in  cor- 
rection of  Humboldt,  hold  that  it  was  a  curve 
in  the  coast  under  the  lee  of  Point  Reyes,  and 
which,  on  the  modern  maps,  is  marked  as 
Drake's  Bay.  In  support  of  this  theory,  it  is 
urged  that  Drake's  Bay  is  in  latitude  37°  59' 
5'',  which  corresponds  within  a  minute  to  the 
statement  of  Drake's  chronicler,  who  made  the 
latitude  38° ;  that  the  cliffs  in  the  vicinity  of 
that  bight  are  white,  resembling  England's  in 
the  neiirhborhood  of  Dover,  and  that  if  he  had 
I'eally  entered  San  Francisco  harbor  he  would 
not  have  been  silent  as  to  its  excellence. 

These  reasons  avouM  seem  quite  insufficient 
to  rob  San  Francisco  of  the  claim  to  Drake  as 
its  discoverer.  Its  latitude  is  37^  59',  to  which 
that  given  by  Drake's  chronicler  is  quite  as  near 
as  those  early  navigators,  with  their  compara- 
tively  rude  instruments,   were   likely  to   get. 


24  THE    HISTORY    OF    CALIFOENIA. 

CHAP.  The  cliffs  about  San  Francisco  are  not  remark- 
,__^_,  ably  wliite,  even  if  one  notable  projection,  inside 
1579.  the  Gate,  is  named  "Lime  Point;"  but  there 
are  many  white  mountains,  both  north  and 
south  of  it,  along  the  coast ;  and  Drake  named 
the  "whole  land — not  his  landing-place  alone — 
"  New  Albion."  They  did  not  go  into  ecstasies 
about  the  harbor — they  were  not  hunting  har- 
bors, but  fortunes  in  compact  form.  Harbors, 
so  precious  to  the  Spaniards,  who  had  a  com- 
merce in  the  Pacific  to  be  protected,  were  of 
small  account  to  the  rovino*  Eno'lishman.  But 
the  best  possible  testimony  he  could  bear  as  to 
the  harbor's  excellence  w^ere  the  thirty-six  days 
that  he  spent  in  it. 

The  probabilities  are,  then,  that  it  was  in  San 
Francisco  Bay  that  Drake  made  himself  at 
home.  As  Columbus,  failing  to  give  his  name 
to  the  continent  he  discovered,  was  in  some 
small  measure  set  right  by  the  bestowal  of  his 
name  upon  the  continent's  choicest  part,  when 
poetry  dealt  with  the  subject,  so  to  Drake, 
cheated  of  the  honor  of  naming  the  finest  harbor 
on  the  coast,  is  .'slill  left  a  feeble  memorial,  in 
the  name  of  a  closely  adjoining  dent  in  the  coast 
line. 

To  the  English,  then,  it  may  be  believed, 
belongs  the  credit  of  finding  San  Francisco  Bay, 
though  the  Spanish  had  long  before  named  and 
mapped  points  on  the  coast  farther  north.     Of 


DRAKE    CLAIMS   THE   LAKD    FOR   ENGLAND.  2t> 

tliis,   however,   Drake   was   ignorant,    and    in  chap. 

•  TT 

Queen  Elizabeth's  name  he  took  j)Ossessiou  of  the  ,____, 
land,  and  erected  a  monument  in  token  of  the  i579. 
fact — "  a  plate  nailed  upon  a  faire  great  poste, 
whereupon  was  ingraven  her  Majestie's  name, 
the  day  and  year  of  our  arrival  there,  with  the 
free  giving  up  of  the  province  and  2:)eople  into 
her  Majestie's  hands ;  together  with  her  high- 
ness' picture  and  arms,  in  a  piece  of  five-pence 
of  current  English  money,  under  the  plate, 
whereunder  was  also  written  the  name  of  oui* 
general." 

The  natives,  who  were  robust,  powerful,  un- 
suspecting, and  kindly,  lived  in  huts  by  the 
water-side,  and  were  found  huddled  around  the 
fires  in  their  huts,  midsummer  though  it  \vas. 
The  men  were  naked ;  the  women  wore  deerskin 
blankets  over  their  shoulders,  and  mats  of 
rushes  around  their  bodies.  They  brought  to 
the  Englishmen  presents  of  feathers  and  to- 
bacco, harangued  them  with  speeches,  and,  mis- 
taking them  for  something  more  than  mortals, 
proposed  to  worship  them.  This  the  visitors 
declined ;  and,  to  show  that  they  too  were  sub- 
jects of  a  Higher  Power,  they  themselves  had 
divine  worship  in  the  presence  of  the  Indians. 
Then,  with  much  ceremony,  with  singing  and 
dancing  on  the  part  of  his  attendants,  the  king 
of  the  Indians  approached  and  placed  upon  the 
admiral's  head  a  crown  of  feathers,  and  made 


26  THE    HISTOEY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  him  a  present  of  liis  whole  kiogdom ;  all  which 

"■     the  admiral  accepted  in  the  name  of  his  sov- 

1579.   ereiirn,  and  in  memorial  of  it,  as  well  as  of  his 

visit,  erected  the  monument   spoken  of  above. 

The  narrative  proceeds : — 

"Our  necessarie  business  being  ended,  our 
general,  with  his  com^^anie,  travailed  up  into 
the  countrey  to  their  villages,  where  we  found 
heardes  of  deere  by  1000  in  a  companie, 
beins:  most  larore  and  fat  of  bodie.  We  found 
the  whole  countrey  to  be  a  warren  of  a  strange 
kind  of  Connies.  *  *  *  The  peoj^le  do  eat 
their  bodies,  and  make  great  accompt  of  their 
skinnes,  for  their  king's  coat  was  made  out  of 
them." — "  There  is  no  part  of  earth  here  to  be 
taken  up  wherein  there  is  not  a  reasonable 
quantity  of  gold  or  silver." 

All  this  is  very  extraordinary.  The  deer 
have  not  yet  vanished  from  the  wooded  parts 
of  the  land.  The  squirrels  still  remain  in  count- 
less numbers,  to  annoy  the  farmers  in  the  val- 
leys.   But  about  the  gold  ? 

The  Europeans  of  that  day  had  very  con- 
temptuous notions  of  any  portion  of  the  New 
World  which  did  not  sparkle  witli  gold  or  sil- 
ver. The  chronicler  of  Drake's  vo3'age  remem- 
bered that,  and  wrote :  "  The  earth  of  the  coun- 
try seemed  to  promise  rich  veins  of  gold  and 
silver;  some  of  the  ore  being  constantly  found 
on  digging."      It  is  ungracious  to  question  the 


EAKLY  EEPOETS  OF  GOLD.  27 

veracity  of  travellers  who   brought   home  so  chap. 
many  indisi^utaljle  truths  ;  but  it  is  significant,  ._^_ 
that   the   Indians   whom  they   met    wore    no    1579. 
golden  ornaments,  as  the  natives  of  lands  usu- 
ally do   where  gold  is  so  very  abundant ;   and 
none  of  Drake's  successors  have  had  any  similar 
good  luck  in  their  explorations  of  the  vicinity 
that  it  is  supposed  he  visited. 


28  THE   HISTORY   OF    CALtFOENIA. 


CHAPTER  m. 

VISCAmO'S    EXPLORATIONS   ALONG     THE  CALIFORNIA. 

COAST. 

CHAP.  The  time  had  come,  wlieo,  unless  Spain 
^^^'     would  consent  to  let  go  quietly  a  vast  region 

1596.  that  might  be  a  baiTen  desert,  or  might  be  an  El 
Dorado — unless  she  would  see  her  bitterest  foe 
inherit,  before  her  own  decay,  an  immense  terri- 
tory that  she  had  eai-ned  by  discovery — unless 
she  would  see  her  Indian  j)ossessions  fronted  by 
her  spoiler,  the  time  had  come  for  action.  In 
1596,  Philip  II.,  from  Madrid,  forwarded  a  dis- 
patch to  Monterey,  Viceroy  of  JVIexico,  conjuring 
him  to  explore  and  seize  California.  In  accord- 
ance with  this  command,  Viscaiuo,  ^vith  three 
ships,  sailed  from  Acapulco,  crossed  over  to  the 
peninsula,  established  a  garrison,  built  a  small 
church,  and  out  of  the  branches  of  trees  con- 
structed some  rude  huts  at  La  Paz — a  name 
given  to  the  ba}'  and  the  new  settlement  in 
token  of  the  peaceful  reception  that  they  re- 
ceived from  the  Indians.  But  speedily  they 
ran  across  the  misfortunes  that  seemed  to  be 


VISCAINO   AT  SATSr   DIEGO.  29 

inseparable  from  all  enterprises  in  the  Gulf,  cnAr. 
and  were  compelled  to  return,  abandoning  the 
settlement  before  the  expiration  of  the  year.  igo2. 

Philip  in.,  hearing  the  result  of  the  attempt, 
gave  orders  to  survey  the  ocean  side  of  the 
peninsula.  Viscaino,  cheerfully  accepting  the 
charge,  left  Acapulco  with  three  vessels,  in  the 
spring  of  1602,  for  an  expedition  that  proved  I602. 
notably  successful.  The  unceasing  head-winds 
made  the  passage  up  the  coast  tedious  and  slow, 
but  that  gave  the  better  opportunity  to  survey 
it  faithfully.  At  Barbary  Bay  (near  Cape  St 
Lucas)  he  found  a  well-behaved  people,  incense- 
trees,  pearly  shells,  and  salt.  About  Magdalena 
Bay  he  found  friendly  though  naked  savages, 
frankincense,  and  eatable  mussels.  He  stopped 
at  several  points  before  reaching  Cerros  Island, 
where  there  were  "  affable  Indians,"  some  pearls, 
little  wood,  and  brackish  water.  On  Cerros 
Island  they  observed  a  bald,  painted  mountain, 
for  its  sides  were  streaked  with  diiferent-colored 
veins ;  and  a  seaman,  who,  because  he  came  from 
Peru,  was  presumed  to  be  a  judge  of  precious 
metals,  gave  his  opinion  that  it  was  entuely 
made  up  of  gold  and  silver !  They  saw^  as  they 
sailed,  "  ill-smelling  but  precious  amber  enough 
to  load  a  ship." 

On  the  10th  of  November  they  entered  the 
harbor  of  San  Diego,  where  they  saw  a  forest 
of  tall,  stj'LQght  oaks,  shrubs  resembling  rose- 


30  THE   HISTORY    OF   CALIFOENIA. 

CHAP,  mary  in  savor,  and  many  fragrant  and  whole- 
,^_i_,  some  plants.  They  stopped  here  ten  days,  and 
1602.  were  deliglited  with  the  mildness  of  the  climate, 
the  excellence  of  the  soil,  the  look  of  the  land, 
which  they  accurately  surveyed,  and  the  docility 
of  the  Indians,  who  besmeared  their  bodies  with 
paint  and  loaded  their  heads  with  feathers.  The 
harbor  abounded  with  fish,  the  flats  with  shell- 
fish, the  woods  with  game. 

At  sea  again,  they  saw  frequently  the  smoke 
of  fires  burning  on  the  hills,  which  they  inter- 
preted as  sure  tokens  that  the  country  was  in- 
habited, and  as  invitations  for  them  to  land. 
On  the  Island  of  St.  Catalina  they  saw  savages 
who  had  a  temple,  and  worshipped  idols  with, 
sacrifices ;  who  sold  fish  to  those  who  dwelt  on 
the  mainland,  and  were  shrewd  thieves.  When 
in  Santa  Barbara  Channel,  the  cazique  offered 
to  give  the  strangers  ten  wives  apiece  if  they 
would  settle  among  them.  Occasionally  they 
wenrt  on  shore,  and  had  mass  celebrated.  The 
harbor,  where  they  anchored  on  the  IGth  of 
December,  1602,  under  the  Point  of  Pines, 
they  named  Monterey,  in  honor  of  the  viceroy 
who  managed  the  fitting  out  of  the  expedition. 
From  this  point,  one  ship  was  sent  back  to 
Acapulco  to  report  progress.  The  others,  after 
a  tarry  of  eighteen  days,  during  which  time  they 
had  made  out  that  the  place  furnished  fine, 
large  pines  fit  for  masts,  and  oak  excellent  for 


VISCAIlSrO    AT   jrOlSTTEREY.  31 

ship-timber,  that  the  harbor  was  secure  against  citap. 
all  winds,  and  that  the  natives  were  so  docile 
that  their  conversion  would  be  easy,  pushed  1602. 
still  farther  northward.  Disease,  however,  had 
thinned  their  numbers  and  weakened  most  of 
those  who  still  survived.  Sharp  pains  were 
continually  shooting  along  their  bones.  They 
were  painfully  sensitive  to  the  keen,  cold  winds. 
Purple  spots  broke  out  upon  their  flesh.  Their 
teeth  were  loosened  in  their  gums,  "  even  so 
that,  unawares,  they  spit  them  out."  To  tell 
their  story  in  a  word,  they  were  sadly  afflicted 
with  scurvy. 

In  twelve  days  after  leaving  Monterey,  a 
favoral^le  wind — it  was  about  the  only  favor  of 
the  sort  they  could  boast — carried  tlie  flag-ship 
"  past  the  25ort  of  San  Francisco ;"  Imt,  the 
smaller  vessel  having  been  separated  from  her, 
the  ship  put  back  into  that  port  and  waited. 
The  barefooted  Carmelite  who  accompanied 
and  wi'ote  the  story  of  the  expedition,  clearly 
states  that  the  flag-ship  "put  back  into  the 
port  Francisco,"  where  a  ship,  that  was  sent 
out  from  the  Philippine  Islands  to  survey  the 
California  coast,  had  been  driven  ashore  and 
lost,  eight  years  before.  The  pilot  of  that  lost 
ship  was  chief  pilot  of  Viscaino's  vessel,  and  he 
affirmed  that,  from  the  wreck,  large  quantities 
of  wax  and  several  chests  of  silks  had  been 
landed. 


32  THE    HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,       The  reader  is  naturally  puzzled,  at  first,  on 

riT  • 

___^  seeing  the  name  used  as  familiarly  as  if  our 
1602.  matchless  harbor  were  already  well  known  to 
the  Mexicans,  especially  as  the  writer  speaks 
of  some  place  in  this  very  vicinity.  But  there 
is  not  the  slightest  probability  that  Viscaino 
entered  the  harbor  of  modern  San  Francisco. 
"  The  flag-ship,"  says  the  record, "  came  to  anchor 
behind  a  point  of  land  called  La  Punta  de  los 
Keyes."  Doul)tless  it  was  the  bight  outside  and 
north  of  the  Heads.  It  is  not  possible  that  Vis- 
caino, who  was  on  a  hunt  for  harboi-s,  could  have 
sailed  through  the  Golden,  Gate  into  the  best 
harbor  north  of  Acapulco,  without  making  spe- 
cial mention  of  so  perfect  a  place  of  safety.  He 
would  have  felt  that  his  expedition  was  an  en- 
tire success,  if  he  had  been  able  to  report  to  the 
viceroy  that,  at  the  very  jjoint  where  the  great 
circle  of  the  trade-winds  touched  the  coast,  he 
had  found  a  good  retreat  and  recruiting-place 
for  the  Philippine  galleon,  where  wood  and 
water  were  easily  oljtaiued,  and  abundant  secu- 
rity furnished  against  every  storm.  He  who 
had  spoken  so  glowingly  of  the  harbors  of  San 
Diego  and  Monterey,  would  not  have  neglected 
a  eulogy  on  that  of  San  Francisco,  if  he  had 
ever  seen  it.  He  would  not  have  spoken  of  it 
only  as  a  place  where  a  ship  had  been  driven 
ashore  by  the  violence  of  the  wind.  Drake  may 
have  entered  it,  and  yet  not  be  struck  with  its 


VlSCAmo'S    EXPLORATIONS.  33- 

capacity  to  accommodate  a  fleet,  for  lie  was  chap. 
sated  with  tlie  sight  of  natural  wonders.  Gold  ,_^J_, 
and  adventure  were  liis  objects — not  safe  anchor-  leoa. 
ing-places. 

Wherever  it  was,  Viscaino  finished  his  sur- 
veys in  a  day,  and  moved  on  again  slowly  to 
the  northward.  On  the  12th  of  January,  he 
made  some  high,  red  mountains,  and  beyond 
them,  farther  northwest,  some  snowy  moun- 
tains, which  he  judged  to  be  Cape  Mendo- 
cino. But  herg  they  encountered  one  of  the  i603. 
dragons  that  had  guarded  the  coast  so  long. 
They  fell  in  with  a  violent  gale,  accompanied 
with  sleet,  and  it  was  intolerably  cold.  There 
were  but  six  persons  on  board  able  to  keep 
the  deck ;  all  the  rest  were  down  with  scurvy. 
On  the  19th,  they  saw  high  mountains,  cov- 
ered with  snow,  which,  from  their  color,  and 
the  fact  that  they  were  seen  on  the  eve  of  St. 
Sebas  tian,  they  called  Cape  Blanco  de  San  Se- 
bastian. 

The  smaller  vessel  went,  probably,  as  high 
as  the  mouth  of  the  Columbia  Kiver,  where, 
finding  they  were  beyond  the  point  to  which 
the  viceroy's  instructions  authorized  them  to 
sail,  and  with  a  sickly  crew,  the  officers  put 
about  to  return  to  Acapulco.  At  the  high- 
est point  that  they  reached,  they  found  a  large 
river,  its  banks  covered  with  ash-trees  and 
willows,  whose  pleasing  appearance  tempted 
3 


.34  TlIE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFORJSIA. 

CHAP,  them  to  land ;  but,  the  currents  hindering  them, 

■     they   turned  toward  the  south,  and  sailed  for 

ieo3.   home,  firmly  believing  that  the  cuiTent  which 

they  could  not  stem  was  the  Strait  of  Anian, 

through  which  the  fabulous  ship  had  passed 

from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific. 

The  flag-ship,  in  returning  to  Acapulco,  kept 
before  a  favorino;  wind  near  enouQ-h  to  shore  for 
the  explorers  to  see  that  the  coasts  were  cov- 
ered with  verdure,  and,  from  the  fires,  they 
judged  them  to  be  populous ;  but  the  crew 
were  too  much  thinned  and  enfeebled  to  permit 
the  closer  examination  they  had  proposed  to 
make  on  their  return. 

Viscaino  was  exceedingly  anxious  to  repeat 
his  expedition,  but  before  doing  so  it  was  ne- 
cessary to  obtain  the  permission  of  his  Span- 
ish Majesty.  He  went  to  Spain,  and  urged 
the  affair  at  coui't  with  great  assiduity.  He 
met  a  courtier's  fate.  He  was  promised,  and 
promised  again,  rebuffed,  encouraged,  and  put 
ofl^  until,  quite  disheartened,  he  retui*ned  to 
Mexico. 

In  a  subsequent  letter  of  Philip  IH.  to  his 
agents  in  Mexico,  we  find  how  much  better  report 
Viscaino  had  made  of  the  Pacific  coast  than  had 
ever  before  been  given.  He  represented  the 
country  as  carpeted  with  verdure,  the  climate 
mild,  the  land  covered  with  trees,  the  soil  fruit- 
ful.    The  chief  subsistence  of  the  people  weie 


TISCAIISro's    FAVOEABLE   EEPORTS.  35 

the  spontaneous  products  of  the  earth  and  the  chap. 
plentiful  objects  of  the  chase.     Their  clothing  ,_^_^ 
was  made  of  the  tanned  skins  of  sea-wolves.    1003. 
They  had  an  abundance  of  flax,  hemp,  and  cot- 
ton.    He  heard  that  in  the  interior  there  were 
large  towns,  silver  and  gold,  and  veins  of  other 
metals. 

The  monarch,  apparently,  labored  under  the 
impression  that  Viscaino  visited  the  coasts  of 
Japan  and  China,  which  he  evidently  thought 
were  but  a  little  distance  off.  He  ordered  a 
search  to  be  made  for  Viscaino,  and,  if  found, 
that  the  command  of  a  new  expedition  be 
given  to  him.  The  veteran  in  his  retirement 
heard  the  news  with  joy,  and  prepared  with 
alacrity  to  engage  in  fresh  enterprises,  but, 
being  suddenly  overtaken  with  a  fatal  illness, 
the  royal  commands  wei'e  never  executed. 

Worse  than  that.  The  charts  that  Viscaino 
made  with  so  much  difficulty,  were  carelessly 
treasured,  or,  in  their  transfer  to  Spain,  were 
lost,  and  in  a  few  years  the  results  of  his  costly 
explorations  were  forgotten. 

It  was  one  hundred  and  sixty-six  years  be- 
fore the  harbor  of  Monterey  was  visited  again, 
and  San  Diego,  "well  watered  and  well 
wooded,"  and  its  bay,  "  spacious  enough  to  con- 
tain many  ships,"  and  the  smaller  bay  contig- 
uous to  it,  passed  as  entirely  out  of  mind  as 
if  they  had  never  been  mapped.     Such  sorry 


36  THE  HISTORY   OF    CALIFOKNIA. 

CHAP,  results    could    scarcely    have    come   of    such 

III  •         '  ■> 

, '_,  o-rand   undertakiriQ-s  if  there  had    been  news- 

1G03.    papers  in  those  days,  to  serve  up,   in  popular 

form,  the  story  of  brave  adventurers,  or  i^rint, 

in   solid  columns,  the  official  reports  of  their 

officers.  f 


ATTEJIPT   TO    COLONIZE   THE   COimTKr.  Z1 


CHAPTEK  IV. 

UNSUCCESSFUL  ATTEMPT  TO    COLONIZE  THE    COUNTRY, 

It  was  a  great  grief  to  Spain,  wlien  there  was  chap. 
leisure  "between  lier  wars  to  consider  it,  that  ._^J_, 
California  could  not  be  conquered  and  peopled.  1683. 
During  many  succeeding  years,  traders  fre- 
quently sent  down  pearls  of  great  value,  ob- 
tained on  the  west  coast  of  the  gulf.  There 
were  current  many  stories  of  inland  discoveries 
to  the  northward,  and  of  the  wealth  that  ad- 
venturers found.  Then  there  were  pirates 
infesting  the  Pacific,  making  their  head-quar- 
ters in  the  California  harbors ;  and  these, 
though  quiet  the  rest  of  the  year,  were  sure  to 
sally  out  when  the  Philippine  galleon  was  due. 
Attempts  were  repeatedly  made  to  re-discover 
the  harbors  already  described,  and  bring  them 
into  use ;  but  all  were  in  vain. 

There  was  a  well-planned  effort  made  for  the 
conquest  of  California  in  1683,  which,  for  a 
while,  promised  fairly.  It  was  under  the  com- 
mand of  Admiral  Otondo,  though  its  spiritual 
government  was  intrusted  to  Father  Kino  by 
the  Jesuits,  upon  whom  it  was  conferred  by 


38  THE   niSTOEY    OF    CALIFOENIA. 

CHAP,  special  warrant  from  Spain,  and  -svitli  tlie  for- 
lorn bope  that,  by  a  joint  effort  of  Clinrcli  and 

1683.  State,  a  permanent  settlement  of  tlie  country 
might  he  effected.  They  sailed  up  the  gulf, 
and  once  more  California  was  taken  possession 
of  in  the  name  of  the  Spanish  Majesty,  with  the 
usual  imposing  ceremonies.  The  admiral  spent 
his  time  in  coastwise  and  inland  explorations, 
while  the  religious  members  of  the  company, 
making  La  Paz  their  head-quarters,  and  having 
erected  a  church  but  three  months  afterward 
near  San  Bruno  Bay,  set  to  work  learning  the 
languages  of  the  natives.  It  was  very  tedious, 
but  the  learners  were  in  earnest,  and  it  was  not 
long  before  they  had  translated  into  the  Indian 
tongue  the  chief  articles  of  the  Christian  creed. 
They  did  not  escape  the  difficulty  alwjiys 
experienced  by  missionaries  in  finding  native 
terms  to  express  ideas  of  which  the  untutored 
heathen  has  no  conception.  On  one  occasion 
they  took  some  flies,  and,  putting  them  under 
water  in  the  presence  of  the  Indians,  waited 
till  the  insects  seemed  to  be  dead ;  then,  placing 
them  on  the  warm  ashes  in  the  sunlight,  told  the 
natives  to  watch  until  they  came  to  life  agaili. 
As  one  after  another  the  flies  were  restored  to 
vitality,  and  began  to  stretch  themselves  and 
clean  their  wings  for  a  flight,  the  exclamation 
of  the  watchers  was  accepted  as  the  proper  word 
by  which  to  render  the  idea  of  resurrection. 


FAILURE   OF   THE   ATTEMPT.  39 

But  there  came  a  drouirlit  of  eighteen  months'  chap. 
duration.  Hardships  innumerable  followed, 
and  so  much  sickness,  that  the  most  sanguine  1G83. 
debated  whether  the  enterprise  must  not  be 
abandoned.  Just  then  came  orders  for  the  ves- 
sels to  put  to  sea,  t6  take  under  convoy  the  Phi- 
lippine ship,  for  which  the  Dutch  privateers  were 
waiting ;  and  so  was  precipitated  the  end  of  an 
effort  which  had  cost  three  years  of  time  and 
large  appropriations  of  the  vojal  revenue. 

The  viceroy  next  endeavored  to  engage  the 
Society  of  Jesuits  to  undertake  the  reduction  of 
California,  promising  them,  as  material  aid, 
$40,000  a  year,  to  be  paid  annually  out  of  the 
king's  treasury.  The  chapter  thanked  him 
for  the  honor  conveyed^  in  the  invitation,  but 
foresaw  too  great  inconveniences  in  taking  upon 
itself  such  rugged  temporal  engagements,  and 
declined.  It  professed  a  readiness,  however, 
always  to  supply  the  necessary  missionaries  to 
accompany  any  future  expedition  that  might  be 
planned. 

Thus,  after  nearly  two  centuries  of  repeated, 
costly  efforts,  it  was  resolved  on  the  part  of 
Spain  that  the  projects  which  Cortez  and  the 
kings  attempted  in  vain  must  be  abandoned ; 
and  California  was  left  to  the  unrestrained  ten- 
antry of  its  naked  natives ;  though  the  most 
fabulous  reports  of  its  wealth  were  credited, 
and  every  year  the  absolute  necessity  to  the 


10  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP.  East  India  trade  of  a  o^ood  harbor  on  the  coast 

IV  T  1 

,^___^  was  made  the  more  apparent. 
1683.  The  mountain  system  of  Ui^per  California, 
when  studied  on  the  modern  maps,  furnishes 
much  apology  for  the  incompetence  of  the  Span- 
iards to  effect  an  earlier  settlement,  and  espe- 
cially for  missing  the  best  harbor.  A  series  of 
mountain  ranges  lies  almost  parallel  to  the 
coast ;  indeed,  for  most  of  its  extent,  the  surf 
beats  the  broadside  of  a  rocliy  mountain.  There 
is  only  one  perfect,  noteworthy  iissure  in  the 
range,  and  that,  widened  by  the  currents,  con- 
stitutes the  Golden  Gate  which  opens  into  San 
Francisco  Bay.  At  the  Point  of  Pines  the  range 
strikes  the  sea.  Between  that  point  and  the 
Santa  Cruz  range  the  ocean  excavates  the  Bay 
of  Monterey.  To  the  same  fact,  that  the  moun- 
tain ranges  are  not  exactly  parallel  with  the 
coast,  we  are  indebted  for  the  roadstead  of  San 
Luis  Obispo,  the  Santa  Barbara  Channel,  and 
the  Bay  of  San  Diego.  When  the  old  naviga- 
tors, sailing  northward,  saw  the  peaks  of  a  dis- 
tant range  draw  nearer  and  nearer  to  the  sea, 
they  might  naturally  expect  it  soon  to  strike 
the  sea  at  a  sharp  angle,  and  just  north  of  that 
they  would  look  for  anchorage.  But  at  San 
Francisco  the  range  is  abruptly  broken.  It  is 
an  exception  to  the  rule,  and  they  failed  to  note 
it.     Remember,  too,  the  thick  fogs  that  so  often 


HAILUEii  OF  Trilu   ATTEMPT.  41 

veil  tlie  Golden  Gate,  and  it   will  seem  less  chap 

strange  that  these  early  navigators  missed  it.       , ^_ 

The  Jesuit  historian,  in  commenting  on  these  1683. 
repeated  failures,  sees  the  hand  of  Providence, 
for  the  glorification  of  religion,  in  the  fact  that 
not  until  majesty  and  power  and  wealth  had 
exhausted  their  resources,  and  confessed  their 
inability  to  cope  with  it,  Avas  the  work  done. 
In  the  same  spirit,  the  American  Christian  sees 
that  it  is  Providence  who  now  will  send  a  suc- 
cession of  earnest,  indefatigable,  religious  men 
to  wi'estle  with  and  subdue  the  land  ;  and  after 
them,  a  race  of  quiet,  easy,  comfortable  priests 
to  possess  it,  tame  its  wildness,  bring  to  view 
the  mild,  serene  enjoyments  so  natural  to  it, 
travel  unsuspicious  over  its  hoarded  wealth, 
seed  and  stock  it,  and  plant  vineyards  in  a  few 
favored  spots ;  develop,  though  feebly,  its  agri- 
cultural resources,  and  then,  with  scarcely  a 
struggle,  surrender  all  to  another  people,  of  a 
reformed  faith  and  more  progressive  practice. 


42  THE   inSTO^lY   OF   OArjl!DE:aA. 


CHAPTER  V. 

EXPERIMENTS  OF  THE  JESUITS  IK  CALIFORNIA. 

The  Father  Kino,  or  Kiihn  (as  it  was  in  his 
native  German),  who  attended  Otondo  in  his 
"^^  unsuccessful  attempt  to  plant  a  colony  and  a 
mission  at  La  Paz,  was  not  a  man  to  retreat 
from  a  project  once  undertaken.  While  hold- 
ing the  professorship  of  mathematics  in  a  Span- 
ish college,  highly  esteemed,  quietly  enjoying  a 
life  of  leisure,  and  with  a  prospect  of  a  large 
fortune  before  him,  he  was  taken  exceedingly 
ill.  When  lying,  as  he  supposed,  at  the  very 
verge  of  death,  he  made  a  vow  to  Saint  Francis 
Xavier  that  if  he  should  recover,  that  saint 
shoukl  be  the  model  of  his  life.  lie  did  re- 
cover, resigned  his  professorship,  and  came  to 
Mexico.  But  before  long  he  grew  jealous  of 
the  tranquillity  of  his  new  career.  He  em- 
braced with  delight  the  hardships  promised  in 
Otondo's  expedition,  and  certainly  had  no 
cause  for  disappointment  in  that  respect.  When 
the  barrenness  of  the  land  and  its  utter  poverty 
forced  its  abandonment,  he,  if  no  others,  was 


ENTHUSIASTIC   PlOi!fEEES.  43 

determined  that  it  should  be  only  temporary,  chap. 
He  was  inflamed  mtli  a  desire  to  conquer  Cali-  ,_^ 
fornia  for  the  Church — an  object  to  which  he  1697. 
devoted  his  life.  He  travelled  widely  through 
Mexico,  persuading,  pleading,  arguing  with  his 
Jesuit  brethren,  to  enlist  their  sympathies  with 
his.  That  he  might  the  better  accomplish  his 
ends,  he  sought  and  obtained  the  appointment 
of  "  Superintendent  of  the  Missions  of  Sonora." 
Their  contiguity  to  the  land  which  it  was  his 
ambition  to  convert  gave  him  facilities,  no 
other  way  attainable,"  for  watching  over  and 
devising  means  to  subdue  the  barren  Canaan 
of  his  hopes.  Fortunately,  as  he  travelled  on 
one  of  his  mission  tours  he  met,  and  infected 
with  his  own  zeal,  Father  Juan  Maria  Salva 
Tierra,  who  soon  became  his  equal  in  enthu- 
siasm. For  a  while  the  two  struofSfled  in  vain. 
The  Society  of  Jesuits,  the  Viceroy  of  Mexico, 
the  King  of  Spain  saw  in  it  nothing  but  a  chi- 
merical experiment,  in  which,  with  an  empty 
treasury,  there  was  no  temptation  to  embark. 
But  in  1697,  eleven  years  after  Father  Kino 
began  to  preach  his  project,  Salva  Tierra  was 
authorized  by  the  Jesuits  to  raise  contributions 
for  the  spiritual  conquest  of  California.  He 
found  a  valuable  colaborer  in  Father  Juan 
Ugarte,  professor  of  jDhilosophy  in  the  College 
of  Mexico,  a  shrewd  manager  of  temporal 
affairs,  who   undertook   to   act   in  Mexico  as 


44  THE    HISTOPwY   OF    CALIFOEXIA. 

OHAP.  agent  for  the  conquerors  while  tliey  were  in 
the  field. 

1697.  It  was  not  long  before  the  funds  were  pour- 
ing in,  and  when  they  accumulated  sufiiciently 
an  expedition  was  fitted  out.  There  were  but  two 
conditions  required  of  the  colonists  by  the  royal 
council :  first,  that  they  must  not  waste  any 
thing  belonging  to  the  crown,  or  dra^^'■  on  the 
treasury,  without  the  king's  express  order; 
second,  that  they  were  to  take  possession  of 
all  territory  in  the  king's  name.  They  were 
empowered  to  enlist  soldiers  for  their  guard 
at  their  own  expense,  and  to  appoint  officers 
of  justice  for  the  land  they  should  conquer. 

Salva  Tierra  and  his  little  company  of  six  sol- 
diers and  three  Indians  crossed  the  gulf  from 
the  mouth  of  the  Yaqui,  and  pitched  their  fii'st 
encampment,  which  tliey  called  Loreto,  on  the 
Bay  of  San  Dionysio,  thirty  miles  south  of  San 
Bruno.  It  was  a  place  green  with  trees  and 
grass,  and  rich  in  its  convenience  to  springs  of 
fresh  water.  The  barracks  for  the  garrison 
were  built,  and  the  tents  for  a  chapel  set  up, 
before  whose  door  was  planted  a  crucifix,  and 
on  it  displayed  a  garland  of  flowers.  On  the 
25th  of  October,  1697,  possession  was  taken  of 
the  country  in  the  name  of  the  king. 

Father  Salva  Tierra  at  certain  hours  of  each 
day  read  to  the  Indians,  who  gathered  for  the 
purpose,  prayers  and  parts  of  the  catechism, 


LIFE   AT  THE   MISSION.  45 

wliicli  lie  translated  to  the  best  of  his  ability,  chap. 
with  the  aid  of  the  papers  that  the  mission-  ,__J_, 
aries   of  Otondo's   expedition   had   preserved.    1097. 
Then,   in   order   to   learn   their   language,   he 
wrote  down  their  discourse.     The  Indians  were 
very  much  amused  with  the  blunders  that  lie 
made,  but  he  took  their   banter  kindly,  and 
made  fine  progress.     When  these  labors  of  the 
day  were  over  he  distributed  to  each  Indian  an 
allowance  of  boiled  maize,  and  so  teacher  and 
taught  made  a  very  good  start. 

It  was  scarcely  a  month,  however,  before  the 
Indians,  wh()  greatly  admired  the  boiled  maize, 
and  were  even  willing  to  take  the  catechism  to 
get  it,  began  to  pilfer  from  the  corn-sacks,  and 
so  improve  upon  the  daily  half-bushel  allow- 
ance. The  attempt  to  prevent  this  provoked 
them  to  jDlot  the  murder  of  the  whole  company, 
that  they  might  get  all  the  corn.  This  calam- 
ity being  happily  averted,  the  Indians  called 
their  brothers  from  many  miles  around,  to  take 
counsel  how  to  crush  out  the  little  colony. 

These  were  tough  times  with  the  handful  of 
soldier  missionaries.  They  were  obliged  to 
keep  constant  watch,  and  they  suffered  sadly 
from  the  intense  heat  of  the  sun  by  day,  and 
still  more  from  the  heavy  rains  at  night ;  against 
which,  being  misled  by  the  continued  drought 
that  Otondo  reported,'  whence  they  inferred 
that  it  never  rained  in   California,  they  had 


46  THE    HISTORY    OF    CALIFOFviaA. 

CHAP,  made  no  provision.  Still,  when  tlie  assault  came, 
^_^  l^  they  were  ready  for  it,  and  the  ten  men  of  the 
i69T.  garrison  withstood  the  attack  of  the  five  hundred 
savages.  When  the  enemy  retreated,  the  pious 
victors  saw  to  their  amazement  that  the  pedes- 
tal of  the  cross  had  caught  most  of  the  arrows, 
\vhile  the  cross  itself  and  the  chapel  tent  were 
untouched,  and  only  two  of  the  soldiers  were 
wounded.  The  Indians,  driven  back  now  by 
force,  were  afterwards  won  to  friendship  by 
kindness  ;  and  Salva  Tierra's  letters  to  Mexico 
were  so  full  of  modesty  and  gratitude  for  the 
preservation  and  success  of  the  mission,  that  to 
four  of  them  was  accorded  the  honor  of  publi- 
cation ! 

And  now  for  two  years  all  things  went 
smoothly.  The  missionaries  widened  by  de- 
grees their  circle  of  influence,  and  made  an 
occasional  tour  of  exploration  into  the  interior. 
The  next  trouble  was  one  that  the  native  doc- 
tors or  sorcerers  stirred  up,  because  their  craft 
was  in  danger;  for  they  very  naturally  and 
correctly  suspected,  that  if  the  strangers  should 
introduce  a  new  religion,  the  prophets  of  the 
old  would  find  their  occupation  gone.  So 
thinking,  they  encouraged  a  rebellion ;  but  the 
appetite  for  boiled  maize,  of  which  they  could 
of  course  get  none  while  hostilities  were  main- 
tained, brought  •  the  rel^els  to  terms  again. 
Once  the  vessel  with  supplies  from  the  main 


TROUBLE    AT   THE   MISSIOI?".  47 

failed   to   arrive  before   the  whole   stock  was  chap. 
reduced  to  three  sacks  of  poor  meal  and  three  ._^_. 
of  maggoty  maize.     Fortunately,  the   twenty-    169T. 
two  soldiers  that  constituted  the  camp  were 
"  cheerful  and  devout,"  and  the  supplies  came 
before  their  courao-e  failed. 

There  was  a  solitary  grumbler  in  the  caifi^, 
however,  whose  letters  home  did  much  mischief 
among  the  friends  of  the  mission.  The  worthy 
captain  of  the  garrison  had  been  compelled  by 
a  trouble  in  his  eyes  to  return  to  Mexico.  His 
successor  felt  his  subordination  to  the  fathers 
irksome,  and  in  his  correspondence  found  much 
fault-  with  their  management.  His  representa-  , 
tions  might  have  produced  no  bad  effects,  if 
there  had  not  already  grown  up  in  Mexico 
much  jealousy  of  the  Jesuits.  Other  expedi- 
tions, said  their  enemies,  sent  home  many 
pearls;  this  one  sends  none.  Their  faithful 
friends  claimed  that  that  fact  showed  the  dis- 
interestedness of  the  missionaries.  Rather,  an- 
swered the  disaffected,  it  proves  that  they  con- 
ceal the  treasures  which  they  gather ;  and,  be- 
sides, that  they  are  pretty  busy  at  something 
else  than  the  state's  business,  one  might  guess, 
seeing  that  no  creek  or  l)ay  or  harbor  has  yet 
been  found  by  them  for  the  great  galleon  to 
seek  shelter  in. 

Meanwhile,  no  help  towards  the  new  con-    i7oo. 
quest  came  from  the  civil  government.     Once 


48  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  the   viceroy    and    general    assembly  tendered 
^'  ^  an  appropriation   so   contemptibly  small   that 

ivoo.  Father  Ugarte  declined  to  accept  it.  Philip 
v.,  on  his  accession  to  the  throne  of  Spain, 
ordered  that  six  thousand  dollars  a  year  be 
paid  towards  the  object.  In  1701,  Mary  of 
Savoy  expressed  her  highest  admiration  of  the 
enterprise.  She  deemed  it  already  a  grand 
success,  for  she  had  learned  that  for  fifty 
leagues  about  the  Indians  were  brought  to  a 
settled  obedience,  that  four  towns  had  been 
founded,  that  they  counted  six  hundred  con- 
verts and  two  thousand  adult  catechumens. 
But,  since  the  treasury  was  already  exhausted 
by  an  expensive  effort  to  conquer  Texas,  and 
save  Pensacola  from  falling  into  the  hands 
of  other  nations,  neither  the  king's  order  nor 
Mary's  good  wishes  brought  a  dollar  to  the 
famishing  conquerors  of  Lower  California. 

Father  Ugarte,  despairing  at  last  of  state 
aid,  o;athered  what  contributions  he  could  in 
Mexico,  and  proceeded  in  person  to  the  field. 
This  was  about  the  close  of  the  year  1700. 
He  took  his  station  at  St.  Xavier,  in  the  inte- 
rior, and  henceforth  the  professor  of  philos- 
ophy dedicated  all  his  energies  to  the  work 
of  teaching  and  civilizing  half-naked  savages. 
There  was  a  little  good  land  about  his  mission, 
and  he  determined  to  make  the  most  of  it. 
The  first  thing  in  the  morning,  the   Indians, 


MEEEY   SAVAGES.  49 

young  and  old,  were  gathered  into  churcli  for  chap. 
mass.  Then  came  breakfast  of  pozoli,  and  ,___, 
tlien  work.  1700. 

It  was  easy  working  with  such  a  master,  for 
he  claimed  the  hardest  task  for  himself.  He 
was  first  in  the  trench  with  his  spade  ;  at  fell- 
ing trees,  no  one  handled  the  axe  so  well ;  at 
splitting  rocks,  he  was  the  handiest  Avith  the 
crow.  His  good-nature  infected  his  company, 
and  when  he  liimself  began  to  tire,  he  ordered 
all  hands  to  rest.  He  was  patient  as  the  day 
was  long,  but  they  must  not  trifle  A^ith  him  out 
of  season.  Once,  at  prayers,  he  was  annoyed  at 
seeing  his  whole  congregation  full  of  merriment, 
evidently  at  his  expense.  He  kept  on  with  his 
duties  as  if  he  saw  nothino-  amiss,  until  he  was 
sure  that  the  cause  of  the  giggling  was  a  stout, 
full-grown  Indian,  who  was  a  sort  of  bully 
among  them.  The  meek  but  muscular  mission- 
ary said  nothing,  but  suddenly  catching  the 
stout  savage  by  the  hair  of  the  liead,  swung 
him  to  and  fro,  till  the  others,  thinking  their 
turn  might  come  next,  ran  frightened  out  of  the 
church.  But  when  he  learned  that  they  had 
laughed  because  of  his  mispronunciation,  and 
the  comical  misuse  of  words  that  the  wags  of 
his  class  led  him  into,  he  possessed  his  soul  in 
patience,  and  chose  more  carefully  his  philo- 
logical advisers.  The  savages  could  not  but  be 
charmed  with  his  shrewd  and  kindly  ways. 
4 


50  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

cnAP.  And  be  made  not  only  the  little  patcli  of  rich 
soil  about  the  mission,  bnt  the  rough,  craggy 
1707.  desert  around  it  too,  wave  -^vith  golden  grain 
and  corn,  and  the  vines  of  his  planting  yielded 
a  small  stock  of  generous  wine.  In  1707,  while 
New  Spain  was  suffering  with  drought,  he  was 
eating  bread  of  his  own  raising.  The  stock 
was  not  enough  to  last  the  year,  but  sufficient 
to  lessen  essentially  the  charges  for  supplies 
from  abroad.  The  horses  and  sheep,  brought 
over  from  the  opposite  coast,  increased  rapidly. 
He  made  distaffs,  spinning-wheels,  and  looms, 
and  imported  a  weaver  to  teach  his  Indians  the 
mysteries  of  that  art.  "Who,"  he  gayly  wrote, 
"  who  would  have  dreamed  of  any  such  thing !" 

Yet  Ions;  before  U^-arte  had  eaten  bread  of 
his  own  makino'  all  the  missions  would  have 
been  blotted  out  but  for  the  untirins;  zeal  oF 
Kino,  who,  from  his  Sonora  settlements,  was 
sending  over  continually  grain,  cattle,  furni- 
ture— every  thing  that  he  could  muster  to  sup- 
ply their  wants.  California  was  his  field,  and 
he  only  tarried  in  Sonora  that,  with  its  fertility, 
he  mig^ht  relieve  the  barrenness  of  the  land 
where  his  affections  lay. 

But  frequently  it  occurred  that  all  the  sur- 
plus proceeds  of  a  harvest,  shipped  for  the  Cali- 
fornia missions,  were  lost  or  damaged  by  the 
dangerous  transit  of  the  gulf  Kino  early  con- 
cluded that  the  salvation  of  the  California  mis- 


NEW    ITISSION   ENTERPRISES,  51 

sions,  wlilch  could  not  become  self-supporting  in  chap. 
many  years,  hinged  on  this  question:  whether 
or  not  California  was  joined  to  the  main  land  1707. 
He  believed  firmly  that  it  was,  and  in  this  faith 
he  constantly  pushed  up  his  missions  to  the 
northward.  He  gathered  the  Indians  into  vil- 
lages, travelled  among  them,  won  their  confi- 
dence, and  slowly  extended  his  peaceful  con- 
quests in  that  direction  where  he  thought— 
perhaps  in  the  latitude  of  Monterey,  perhaps  of 
Mendocino — he  would  be  able  to  turn  south 
again,  and  carry  on  the  chain  of  Christian  settle- 
ments, till  the  last  link  were  established  mth 
Loreto  and  its  circle.  He  met  few  difficulties 
in  the  Indians  themselves,  but  an  abundance 
from  his  commercial  countrymen.  The  Apaches, 
at  this  day  such  a  terror  to  travellers,  gave  him 
no  trouble ;  but  avaricious  Spaniards  were  the 
plague  of  his  life.  These  fellows  studied  to 
keep  the  Pimos  rebels  and  enemies,  that  they 
might  have  an  excuse  for  making  slaves  of 
them.  At  his  earnest  solicitation,  the  Audience 
of  Guadalaxara  agreed  that  none  of  his  converts 
should  be  obliged  to  work  in  the  mines  or  on 
the  public  lands  for  five  years  after  conversion. 
Charles  V.  extended  the  term  of  exemption  to 
twenty  years.  And  yet  Kino  was  sadly  morti- 
fied to  see  his  baptized  converts  dragged  off 
without  mercy  to  the  mines,  in  spite  of  the  agree- 
ment— in  violation  of  the  king's  explicit  order. 


52  THE    HISTOEY    OF    CALIFOENIA. 

oiiAP.  But  Fatlier  Kino  knew  that  in  Mexico,  and 
among  those  who  were  regarded  as  authorities, 

iroo.  there  were  many  who  denied  the  premises  of 
his  reasoning,  and  were  sceptical  as  to  the  con- 
nection of  California  with  the  main  land,  upon 
•  which  he  presumed.  More  to  satisfy  their 
doubts  than  any  of  his  own,  in  the  year  1700 
he  made  up  a  party  of  friendly  Indians,  and 
proceeded  to  the  junction  of  the  Gila  and  the 
Colorado,  crossed  the  Gila,  where  fifteen  hun- 
dred natives  came  out  in  a  body  to  see  him,  and 
ascended  a  mountain,  whence  he  saw  nothing 
but  laud  to  the  westward.  The  natives,  too, 
assured  him  that  the  first  "  big  water "  in  a 
westerly  direction  was  the  South  Sea. 

1701.  The  next  year  he  repeated  the  journey,  ac- 
companied by  Salva   Tierra,   and   both   were 

1702.  satisfied  on  the  point.  The  year  following, 
Kino  once  more  took  the  excursion,  and  made 
his  own  assurance  trebly  sure  that  California 
was  not  an  island,  as  the  maps  of  that  day  had 
it,  under  the  name  of  Islas  Carolinas.  But 
the  course  of  our  story  must  wait  no  longer 
on  the  movements  of  Father  Kino,  the  life 
as  they  were  of  the  land  to  whose  spiritual 
subjugation  he  was  entirely  devoted.  He 
abated  no  jot  of  his  first  zeal,  remitted  no  effort 
that  could  forward  his  cause,  until,  in  lYlO,  he 
died. 

1704.       The  seventh  year  (1704)  of  the  California 


A   PEKILOUS   YEAR.  53 


missions  was  near  to  Leing  their  last.  The  sup-  chap. 
plies  were  spoiled  on  the  way.  The  garrison 
grew  discontented.  Matters  came  to  such  a  1704. 
strait  that  Salva  Tierra  called  the  fathers  to- 
gether, and  plainly  put  the  question  whether 
they  should  surrender  to  the  impending  famine 
and  go  home.  Not  that  he  for  a  moment  med- 
itated joining  himself  in  any  retreat,  but  it 
seemed  like  submitting  to  a  company  of  men 
whether  or  not  they  would  consent  to  stay  and 
starve.  The  fathers,  with  one  voice,  agreed  to 
take  the  risks  and  stay.  Nor  upon  consulta- 
tion would  one  of  the  camp  consent  to  go,  un- 
less the  fathei's  would.  So  Ugarte  gathered  a 
force  of  soldiers  and  Indians  for  a  raid  into  the 
woods ;  and  on  the  fruits  of  the  forest  and  the 
roots  that  they  dug,  they  managed  to  subsist 
until  supplies  arrived. 

This  peril  passed,  Salva  Tierra  went  over  to 
Mexico  on  business  of  the  mission.  There  he 
heard  bad  news — that  he  was  promoted  to  be 
provincial.  He  sent  on  at  once,  asking  23ermis- 
sion  to  resign  his  new  post,  but  meanwhile 
exerted  all  the  increased  influence  that  the 
position  gave  him  to  forward  the  California 
interest.  He  waited  on  the  viceroy,  pleaded 
the  king's  warrants,  urged  the  arguments  two 
centuries  old,  but  won  only  promises.  He  pre- 
pared a  bold  and  earnest  memorial  to  the 
Assembly,  just  about  to  meet,  in  which  he  set 


54  THE   HISTORY   OF   CALIFORNIA. 

OHAP.  forth  the  policy  of  supporting  what  was  so  well 
^  ■     begun,  and  rei^resented  the  impossibility  of  con- 

1711.  tinuing  the  settlements  unless  a  more  generous 
liberality  were  extended  them.  For  seven  and 
a  half  years  they  had  been  allowed  three  ves- 
sels ;  now  two  of  them  were  lost,  and  one  could 
not  answer  the  purpose.  He  contrasted  the 
luckless,  fruitless,  wretchedly  misconducted  ex- 
pedition of  Otondo,  who  had  the  royal  treas- 
ury at  command,  with  the  economy  and  success 
of  this.  He  pictured  the  barrenness  of  the 
country.  From  the  time  of  Cortez  the  peopling 
of  it  was  tried  in  vain ;  but,  the  holy  Virgin 
of  Loreto  aiding,  the  land  was  subdued  at 
last  and  settled.  He  showed  how  certainly  all 
would  be  lost  if  the  fathers  had  not  the  power 
to  appoint  and  displace  the  commander  of  the 
military.  He  dwelt  uj^on  the  danger  of  insur- 
rection if,  under  any  pretence,  the  Indians  were 
compelled  to  fish  for  pearls,  and  he  asked  that 
twenty-five  soldiers  and  a  captain  be  put  at 
the  service  of  the  missionaries.  The  cost  of  the 
enterprise  to  that  day  was  one  million  two  hun- 
dred and  twenty-five  thousand  dollars,  exclu- 
sive of  the  "foundation"  of  six  missions,  which 
amounted  to  sixty-eight  thousand  dollars  more. 
Of  these  sums  the  treasury  had  paid  only  eigh- 
teen thousand  dollars.  As  to  the  Idner's  suq- 
gestion  to  establish  a  gairison  on  the  western 
coast,  for  the  relief  of  the  Philippine  ships,  he 


SALVA    TIEPtEAS   PLEA.  55; 

proposed  tliat,  without  tlie  expense  of  a  new  chap 
garrison,  a  siil:)sicly  of  thirteen  thousand  dollars 
be  paid  to  the  fathers,  which  would  enable  1711. 
them  to  push  the  settlements  across  to  the  west- 
ern coast.  As  to  the  condition  of  the  country, 
he  assui'ed  them  that  the  sovereign  was  now 
possessed  of  fifty  leagues  in  circuit,  where  all 
was  so  profoundly  peaceful  that  the  fathers  tra- 
versed it  alone  without  a  guard.  Three  routes 
to  the  Pacific  had  been  discovered,  and  a  dis- 
tance of  two  days'  journey  along  the  ocean 
coast  had  been  surveyed. 

But  the  viceroy,  who  listened  with  politeness, 
meant  no  relief.  His  royal  master  needed  all 
that  could  be  spared  from  the  treasury,  for  the 
greater  part  of  Europe  was  leagued  to  deprive 
him  of  his  crown.  Perhaps  the  viceroy  was 
influenced  by  the  common  scandal  of  the  time 
as  to  the  insatiable  avarice  and  wealth  of 
the  Jesuits ;  more  probably  he  thought  he 
made  a  better  case  for  himself  with  the  king, 
by  remitting  money  to  Spain,  than  he  could  by 
carrying  into  effect  his  pious  orders,  which  did 
not  need  to  be  enforced  to  gain  for  majesty  an 
abundance  of  credit.  But,  whatever  his  motive, 
California  got  no  favors  from  him. 

The  churlish  viceroy  died  in  1711,  and  the 
Duke  de  Linacres  succeeded  him.  The  duke 
had  an  hereditary  aftection  for  the  Jesuits,  and 
would  have  strained  a  point  to  forward  their 


56  THE    HISTORY    OF    CALIFOENIA. 

CHAP,  enterprise;  but  in  his  official  capacity  he  could 
do  nothino;,  for  all  the  kino-'s  schedules  had 

1711.  been  so  carefully  secreted  by  his  predecessor 
that  they  could  not  be  found.  However,  he 
testified  the  sincerity  of  his  professions  by  giv- 
ing: by  will  one-thii'd  of  his  estates  to  the  Cali- 
foruia  missions,  and  then,  as  the  climax  of  his 
excellent  behavior,  died  in  I7l7,  and  gave  them 
an  early  enjoyment  of  his  bequests. 

The  missionaries,  meanwhile,  kept  themselves 
busy ;  now  Father  Piccolo  was  directing  all 
their  energies  to  secure  the  supplies  for  their 
subsistence ;  now  Father  Ugarte  was  laborious- 
ly surveying  a  new  route  to  the  ocean;  now  all 
were  eng-ao-ed  in  induciuo;  the  Indians  at  a  dis- 
tance  to  exchano-e  their  wild  life  for  the  habits 
of  the  settlements,  and  now  founding  new.  mis- 
sions. 

Salva  Tierra  had  at  last  obtained  his  dis- 
charge from  the  office  of  provincial,  and  re- 
turned to  share  the  perils  of  his  brethren. 
Scarcity  of  food  was  the  dark  shadow  that  was 
always  approaching,  or  just  behind  them,  but 

1717.  seldom  entirely  out  of  sight.  At  one  time  the 
small-pox  made  terrible  ravages  among  the 
natives.  The  sorcerers  whispered  that  the 
fathers  poisoned  the  children  with  the  baptis- 
mal water,  and  the  adults  with  extreme  unc- 
tion, and  thence  came  seditions  and  revolts. 
Then  the  vessels  were  lost.     Then  again  there 


A  statesman's  view.  57 

would  be  a  burst  of  sunshiue ;  supplies  would  char 
arrive,  and  peace  follo^v  iu  the  wake  of  plenty ;  _J_, 
and  so,  with  alternations  of  good  and  bad  for-  1717. 
tune,  tliino;s  went  on  until  1717. 

In  the  autumn  of  that  year  all  the  peninsu- 
la was  visited  by  a  hurricane,  which  did  great 
damage  to  the  missions.  Father  Ugarte's  house 
and  chiu-ch  were  le\^elled  to  the  ground.  A 
Spanish  boy  at  Loreto  was  reported  as  taken  up 
in  a  whirlwind  and  never  seen  more  !  If  (says 
the  chronicler)  in  former  ages  such  hurricanes 
were  frequent  in  California,  it  is  not  surprising 
that  all  its  mould  was  swej^t  away,  leaving  its 
rocks  bare,  and  its  plains  and  valleys  covered 
with  heaps  of  stones. 

But  a  more  remarkable  event  than  the  hur- 
ricane notched  this  year  as  noticeable.  A  new 
viceroy  had  arrived  at  Mexico,  charged  by  the 
minister  Alberoni — afterwards  cardinal — to 
lend  eveiy  encouragement  to  the  Sonora  and 
California  missions ;  to  establish  garrisons  on 
the  South  Sea  coast  at  all  practicable  points, 
and,  if  possible,  to  induce  the  formation  of  set- 
tlements up  the  Colorado  and  Gila  Hi  vers.  Al- 
beroni believed  that  the  settlement  of  Califor- 
nia would  tend  to  develop  immensely  the 
trade  with  the  Philippines,  and  that  in  return 
that  trade,  after  a  nucleus  on  the  coast  were 
once  formed,  would  build  up  California.  His 
instructions  on  these  points  wonderfully  fore- 


58  THE    HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

shadow  the  destiny  of  the  coast  that  we  are 
seeing  fulfilled  to-day,  though  of  course  the 
glory  and  wealth  of  Spain  were  the  ol>jects  to 
1)0  attained  by  all  the  means  that  he  suggested. 
The  viceroy  desired  to  second  with  spirit  all 
that  was  commanded  him,  and,  that  he  might 
do  so  intelligently,  sent  for  Salva  Tierra  to  visit 
Mexico. 

The  noble  old  pioneer,  though  afflicted  with 
a  very  painful  disorder,  and  stooping  with  the 
weight  of  years,  immediately  started.  He 
paused  from  sheer  necessity  at  Guadalaxara, 
and  was  never  able  to  renew  his  journey.  Two 
months  he  suffered  there  the  sharpest  agony ; 
then,  perfectly  contented,  resigned  his  breath. 
The  whole  city  assisted  at  his  burial,  and  every 
friend  of  California  mom'ned  her  loss  in  his 
death. 

Jayme  Bravo,  who  attended  the  good  father 
through  his  illness,  pushed  on  to  Mexico,  and 
answered,  a  good  deal  better  than  was  feared, 
the  purposes  for  which  Salva  Tierra  had  been 
summoned.  The  viceroy's  council  and  the 
Assembly,  with  the  greatest  generosity,  granted, 
so  fiir  as  resolutions  could  do  it,  all  that  was 
asked,  but  forgot  the  necessary  appropriations ; 
and  so  the  treasurer,  who  was  a  very  strict 
economist  where  his  own  interests  were  out  of 
question,  declined  to  pass  over  any  funds. 
Then  Alberoni,  being  made  cardinal,  left  Spain 


WASTED    LABORS.  59 

for  a  different  order  of  business,  and  thus  his  chap. 
grand  scheme  for  California  collapsed.  v.--,—' 

In  1722  clouds  of  locusts  invaded  Lower  1722. 
California,  and  consumed  every  green  thing. 
The  Indians,  being  short  of  food,  turned  the  in- 
vaders to  account  for  that  purpose,  and  from 
this  cause,  as  they  alleged,  came  the  general 
epidemic,  of  which  great  numbers  of  them  died. 
The  next  year  an  epidemic  dysentery  raged 
with  great  havoc. 

But  no  opportunity  for  making  explorations 
was  ever  omitted.  The  Pacific  coast  had  been 
surveyed,  from  St.  Lucas  to  the  latitude  of  Cer- 
ros  Island,  and  three  tolerable  harbors,  with 
wood  and  water  convenient,  had  been  discov- 
ered. Maps,  charts,  and  minute  draughts  of 
the  result  of  every  tour  were  forwarded  to 
Spain,  but  it  is  doubtful  if  royal  eyes  ever 
vouchsafed  a  glance  at  them.  Valuable  papers 
of  this  sort  were  either  treated  carelessly  and 
soon  lost,  or,  if  deposited  in  the  state  archives, 
it  was  so  difficult  to  gain  access  to  them,  that 
their  information  failed  to  enter  into  general 
circulation.  So  it  happened,  that  during  this 
century  there  were  many  important  discoveries 
and  re-discoveries  ;  and  the  country  was  still,  at 
the  end,  almost  the  Unknown  Land  that  it  was 
at  the  beginning. 

As  to  the  insular  or  peninsular  character  of 
California,  there  was  scarcely  less  diversity  of 


GO  THE   HISTOEY   OF    CALIFOENIA. 

OFTAP.  sentiment  than  if  Father  Kino  had  not  three 
^-      &e3iferal   times  during::   his  life  established  the 

1722.  point.  Even  Father  Ugarte  thought  there 
might  possi]:)ly  be  some  channel  between  Loreto 
and  the  mouth  of  the  Colorado,  through  which 
the  Abaters  of  the  Gulf  issued  into  the  ocean. 
The  doubt  at  last  bred  in  him  the  determina- 
tion to  know  the  truth.  But  he  had  no  vessel 
to  make  a  survey  with,  no  money  to  purchase 
one,  and  no  timber  at  hand  to  build  one.  Being 
in  earnest,  however,  he  procured  a  gang  of  ship- 
masters, climbed  with  them  over  the  mountains, 
found  in  a  secluded  spot  trees  that  they  pro- 
nounced fit  for  the  purpose,  cleared  a  road  into 
the  slough,  cut  and  dragged  the  timber  to  the 
landing,  and  constructed  a  vessel,  of  no  great 
dimensions  indeed,  but  a  stancher  craft  than 
they  were  accustomed  to  see  in  those  parts; 
and  though  it  about  exhausted  their  provisions 
and  money,  it  cost  less  than  to  have  bought 
her  equal  in  Mexico.  This  pioneer  Cali- 
fornia coaster  was  named  The  Triumph  of  the 
Cross. 

Taking  an  open  boat  along  as  a  tender, 
Father  Ugarte  and  a  company  of  twenty  men 
set  sail  in  the  Trium])h^  on  an  expedition  from 
which  they  did  not  return  until  they  had  thor- 
oughly explored  both  sides  of  the  Gulf  to  the 
mouth  of  the  Colorado.  It  proved  a  voyage 
full  of  perils   and  hair-breadth   escapes.     As 


FATHER   TJGARTE's  DEATH.  61 

they  neared  the  upper  end  of  tlie  Gulf,  the  tide  chap. 
rolled  impetuously  at  the  flood  over  an  immense  ,_^J_ 
extent  of  flat  country,  and  currents  of  great  1722. 
strength  swept  around  the  rocks.  The  water 
was  poisonous  to  their  flesh.  One  day  it  was 
as  dark  at  noon  as  it  usually  is  at  midnight ! 
They  had  thunder  and  rain,  and  waves  of  fright- 
ful height.  Once  they  were  terrifl.ed  by  the 
close  approach  of  a  water-spout.  It  was  a  great 
comfort  to  the  men,  as  the  fiercest  of  the  gales 
that  they  encountered  was  raging,  to  see  St. 
Elmo's  fire  hoveriuo;  around  the  cross  at 
the  mast-head.  Out  of  all  their  troubles  they 
were  safely  delivered,  and  they  returned  well 
satisfied  that  they  had  seen  the  end  of  the  Gulf, 
and  that  there  was  no  way  for  its  waters  to 
reach  the  ocean  except  southward.  As  to  the 
people  on  the  shores,  they  noticed  that  those 
on  the  east  were  cruel  and  malio-nant,  but  on 
the  west  they  were  gentle,  friendly,  and  just. 
Father  Ugarte  made  no  more  exj)editions,  built 
no  more  vessels.  In  1730,  when  seventy  years  1730. 
old,  after  thirty  years  of  missionary  life  and 
service,  he  quietly  died. 

If  he  had  lived  four  years  longer,  he  would 
have  thought  the  sun  of  a  brighter  day  wa 
rising  on  his  rugged  land.     For,  in  1734,  the    1734. 
Philippine  galleon  for  the  first  time  visited  it, 
turning  in  to  St.  Lucas  with  only  water  enough' 
on  board  to  last  two  days  longer,  and  her  crew 


02  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

down  with  scurvy.  The  missions  furnished 
her  with  water,  fresh  fruit,  and  vegetables,  and 
1734.  most  of  the  crew  were  recovered  before  she  re- 
sumed her  lazy  course  toward  Acapulco. 

Here  were  demonstrated  at  last  the  benefits 
of  the  mission  to  East  Indian  commerce.  When 
the  story  should  reach  Mexico,  it  must  com- 
mend the  policy  so  long  pursued  without  en- 
couragement, and  give  a  fresh  impetus  to  the 
work  of  settling  tlie  country. 

But  it  worked  precisely  an  opposite  result. 
The  Philippine  trade  itself  was  in  Jesuit  hands. 
The  owners  of  the  cargoes  of  the  galleon  were 
the  monks  of  Manila.  They  had  their  enemies 
in  Mexico,  and  these  found  now  a  new  reason 
for  frowning  on  the  missions.  Their  influence 
was  sufficient  with  the  Government  to  prevent 
the  dispatch  of  garrisons  to  protect  the  later 
settlements. 

The  Indians,  no  longer  restrained  by  moral 
means,  since  the  fathers  had  no  physical  force 
to  make  it  respectable,  rose  in  rebellion,  de- 
stroyed the  four  missions  between  La  Paz  and 
St.  Lucas,  and  gave  crowns  of  martyrdom  to 
Fathers  Carranco  and  Taraaral.  The  mission- 
aries returned  to  Loreto,  which  was  the  capital 
of  the  province,  and  their  settlements  for  a 
while  i"an  to  waste.  The  next  year's  galleon, 
putting  in  to  St.  Lucas,  found  all  desolate  that 
was  shortly  before  so  flourishing,  and,  indeed, 


A    REBELLION.  63 

thirteen  of  ter  men,  wLo  went  on  shore  with-  chap. 
out  suspicion,  were  murdered  by  the  insur-  ^,J_, 
gents.  1736. 

The  Yaquis  came  over  from  the  continent 
to  aid  the  missionaries,  and  the  Governor  of  Si- 
naloa  tendered  his  help.  It  was  not,  however, 
until  after  he  had  spent  two  years  in  learning 
that  coercion  was  the  only  method  of  dealing 
with  insurs-ent  Indians,  that  he  took  the  fa- 
thers'  advice,  treated  the  rebels  as  enemies, 
whipped  them  soundly  in  battle,  and  restored 
peace. 

Philip  V.  assumed  the  cost  of  repressing 
this  outbreak  for  the  royal  treasury,  and  he 
made  some  spasmodic  efforts  to  complete  the 
reduction  of  California.  Ferdinand  VI.,  with 
all  his  power,  seconded  his  father's  efforts.  He 
essayed,  but  without  success,  to  settle  the  pen- 
insula by  means  of  emigration  from  Mexico. 
He  ordered  that  the  soldiery  be  entirely  subor- 
dinate to  the  clergy.  He  suggested  to  the 
Jesuits  the  propriety  of  doubling  the  number, 
of  their  missionaries,  and,  in  accordance  with 
Father  Kino's  plan,  sweeping  the  circle  of 
their  establishments  from  Pimeria  to  California. 
But  the  provincial  replied,  that  the  utter  bar- 
renness of  the  reQ:ion  around  the  head  of  the 
Gulf,  and  the  experience  of  fifty  years,  made  it 
quite  useless  to  repeat  that  attempt.  Still, 
Father   Consag,  in   1746,   explored   anew  the 


64  THE   HISTORY    OF   CALIFOENIA. 

CHAP.  Colorado,  with  a  view  to  the  practicability  of 
establishing  an  overland  route  from  California 
174G.   to  Sonora. 

Meanwhile,  the  order  remitted  no  effort  to 
maintain  the  missions  that  were  estal^lished, 
and  found  new  ones.  In  1745  they  numbered 
sixteen.  Their  sio-nal  iires  on  the  mountains 
guided  the  annual  galleon  into  St.  Lucas  Bay, 
and  the  products  of  their  thin  soil  furnished  the 
fresh  supplies  that  her  scurvy-stricken  crew  re- 
1758.  quired.  In  1758  the  Indians,  for  a  tract  three 
hundred  leagues  northward  from  St.  Lucas, 
were  tamed  and  converted — that  is,  they  did  no 
harm  to  the  whites,  worked  a  little  under  the 
orders  of  the  fathers,  and  were  supported  in 
part  or  entirely  by  them. 

Life  at  the  missions  passed  off  very  quietly, 
in  about  this  way : — 

Every  morning  the  sexton,  or  catechist,  as- 
sembled the  Indians  in  the  church,  where  the 
Te  Deiitn  was  sung,  mass  said,  and  catechism 
rehearsed.  Then  came  a  breakfast,  for  all  who 
were  punctual  at  church,  of  corn,  boiled,  bruised, 
macerated  in  water,  and  Avarmed  again — they 
called  the  dish  atole.  Then  all  went  to  the 
work  of  the  day,  or  to  the  woods.  At  noon, 
they  who  fed  at  the  public  table  had  pozoli — 
simple  boiled  corn — with  meat,  and  "  vegetables 
in  theii*  season."  At  night,  there  were  devo- 
tions again  in  the  church;  and,  after  that,  more 


LIFE   AT   THE   MISSIONS.  65 

atole.  Every  Sunday  they  walked  in  proces-  ohap. 
sion  around  the  village,  and  then  to  church,  v_.^_ 
where,  besides  prayers,  catechism,  and  singing,  1Y58. 
they  heard  slm23le  sermons. 

The  father  was  head  laborer,  head  cook, 
school-master,  physician,  and  priest.  In  every 
new  mission  he  was  attended  by  a  soldier,  who 
was  vicegerent  in  the  father's  absence ;  for 
small  faults  he  whipped,  for  larger  ones  he  im- 
prisoned the  offender,  or  put  him  in  the  stocks. 
Whipping,  from  the  way  it  came  into  vogue, 
was  always  very  popular.  The  captain  of  the 
garrison  at  Loreto  once  detected  a  thief,  and 
ordered  for  him  a  very  severe  punishment.  Just 
as  sentence  was  about  to  be  executed,  Salva 
Tierra  interfered ;  the  captain  consented  to 
change  the  punishment  to  flogging,  and  the  na- 
tives were  filled  with  admiration  that  so  inno- 
cent and  superficial  a  substitute  could  satisfy 
justice. 

The  captain  of  the  garrison  was  also  captain 
of  the  coast ;  but  in  all  things  he  was  subordi- 
nate to  the  fathers,  which  was  a  grievous 
offence  to  the  sword.  The  soldiers  and  sailors 
complained  about  being  denied  the  privilege  of 
diving  for  pearls,  of  which  every  fifth  one  found 
was  the  Idng's  perquisite  ;  l)ut  diving,  the  mis- 
sionary firmly  prohibited.  Nothing  so  much 
prejudiced  the  natives  as  to  find  the  foreigners 
running  off  with  this  source  of  their  wealth ; — 


o 
5 


G6  THE   HISTORY    OF   CALIFORmA. 

CHAP,  uotliinfi:  would  sooner  entail  scandal  on  tLe  mis- 
sions.     He  encouraged  diving  by  the  natives, 

1758.   on  their  own  account;  but  neither  sailors  nor 
soldiers  must  engage  in  it. 

Everywhere,  the  children  were  the  first  care. 
Some  from  all  the  missions  came  up  to  Loreto, 
where  they  learned  reading,  writing,  singing, 
and  Spanish ;  and  were  promoted,  as  they 
earned  the  honor,  to  be  church-wardens  or 
catechists  at  home.  The  priests  furnished  their 
parishioners  with  coarse  clothes  and  blankets. 
Those  who  could  work  were  insti'ucted  to  do 
so,  and  the  product  of  their  labor  was  their 
own,  except  only  the  wine,  which  the  father 
saved  for  his  personal  and  medicinal  uses.  But, 
as  the  very  best  of  them  would  waste  all  they 
gathered,  if  left  in  their  ■  hands,  the  father 
saved  it  for  them  in  a  common  store,  distribu- 
ting it  as  their  necessities  demanded,  or  occa- 
sionally helping  out  some  other  mission  not 
quite  so  able.  As  it  was  found  impossible 
either  to  subsist  the  entire  population  wlio 
would  attend  service,  as  was  first  intended,  or 
to  find  profitable  work  for  them,  the  policy 
adopted  was  to  feed  the  chief,  the  aged,  the 
sick,  and  the  children  from  six  to  twelve  years 
old,  and  to  give  a  certain  allowance  to  all  the 
rest,  provided  once  a  week  they  came  to  receive 
instruction.  This  was  done  to  induce  them  to 
keep  together  in  villages,  rather  than  to  stray 


THE   JESUITS    IN    LOWER    CALIFORIflA.  67 

about  the  mountains,  driftino;  hither  and  thither  chap. 
without  any  home.  Seeing  that  not  the  church  ,___j^ 
only,  but  all  the  parishioners  were  to  be  sup-  1758. 
ported,  these  missions  were  very  costly  experi- 
ments to  their  faithful  patrons.  When  the 
contributions  for  their  support  amounted  to 
$10,000,  the  sum  was  invested  at  home  as  a 
"foundation,"  and  the  five  per  cent,  interest 
was  transmitted  to  the  missionary  as  his  salary. 
Afterwards,  instead  of  investing  the  principal, 
it  was  devoted  to  the  purchase  of  a  farm, 
which  was  mana2:e(l  for  the  missions'  account. 
Really,  since  1735,  there  had  been  no  great  dif- 
ficulty as  to  the  finances.  The  Jesuits  had 
received  some  large  donations,  which  were  ad- 
ministered shrewdly — they  purchased  some  pro- 
ductive real  estate,  and  afterwards,  added  to  it 
mines,  factories,  and  flocks.  This  property  was 
held  sacred  to  the  California  enterprise,  and 
was  called  the  "  Pious  Fund." 

Whatever  they  may  have  to  answer  for  on  i767. 
other  parts  of  the  continent,  the  Jesuits  certainly 
earned  a  good  name  in  Lower  California.  True, 
none  but  Jesuits  were  the  historians  of  their 
career  on  the  bari'en  peninsula,  but  their  version 
is  confirmed  by  Indian  tradition,  and  by  all  the 
mute  witnesses  that  remain  after  the  workman 
is  gone,  and  testify  of  his  faithfulness  or  his 
treason  to  his  trust. 

But  King  Charles  of  Spain  saw  Jesuitism 


68  THE    HISTORY   OF    CALIFOET^IA. 

CHAP,  steeping  in  the  politics  and  controlling  the 
^_^_  interests  of  the  realm ;  and,  to  save  his  throne, 
1767.  he  expelled  the  order  from  his  domain.  The 
decree  was  instantly  enforced  in  the  provinces 
of  Mexico ;  and  the  Jesuit  establishments  in 
California,  and  their  pious  fund,  were  turned 
over,  in  17G7,  to  the  Franciscan  monks  of  the 
College  of  San  Fernando,  at  Mexico. 

Father  Juuipei'o  Serra  was  selected  as  the 
president  of  the  missions  under  the  new  order. 
He  set  out  at  once  for  his  field,  and  on  the  1st 
of  April  of  the  next  year,  at  Loreto,  took 
possession.  In  the  manuscript  records  of  the 
Loreto  church  stands  the  entry  that  Serra  made 
on  the  next  day :  "We  are  in  the  mission  and 
royal  presidio  of  Loreto,  capital  of  this  penin- 
sula of  California,  sixteen  religious  priests, 
preachers  and  apostolic  missionaries ;  ""'  *  * 
the  fathers  of  the  Company  of  Jesus  having 
been  expelled,  for  reasons  known  to  his  Ma- 
jesty." 

If  thus  the  Franciscans  came  in  without  a 
compliment  to  their  predecessors,  the  Jesuits 
went  out  saying  "  the  grapes  were  sour,"  and 
wasting  no  adulations  on  the  land  they  were 
quitting.  Father  Begert,  a  German,  who  had 
spent  seventeen  years  in  the  land,  relieved  his 
mind  of  a  load  when  he  got  back  to  Europe, 
by  publishing  at  Manheim,  in  1773,  some  "  His- 
torical Sketches  of  the  American  Peninsula  of 


FRANCISCAISrS  UNDERTAKE  THE  MISSIONS.  69 

California."  He  pronounced  it  a  miserable 
land,  not  wortt.  the  trouble  of  describing — a 
land  of  chaparral,  thorn-busiies,  bare  rocks,  and  1769. 
sand-hills,  with  a  brutish  people,  whose  Christi- 
anity was  all  on  the  surface,  but  whose  habits 
of  laziness,  lying,  and  stealing  were  ingrained. 
They  had  no  words  to  express  the  most  homely 
virtues,  yet  had  so  small  a  share  of  such  virtues 
that  the  lack  was  not  annoying  to  them.  Be- 
gert's  book  must  have  made  the  bones  of  Kino 
and  Salva  Tierra  rattle  with  indignation  in  their 
graves,  that  a  Jesuit  should  come  to  sjjeak  in 
such  a  strain  of  the  poor  land  and  the  poorer 
people  whom  they  offered  themselves  to  save! 

The  Franciscans  girded  themselves  to  their 
work  with  enthusiasm,  but  a  rival  order,  the 
Dominicans,  began  to  clamor  for  a  share  of  the 
field,  and  at  last  obtained  a  royal  edict  requir- 
ing one  or  two  of  the  missions  to  be  surrendered 
to  them.  The  Franciscan  warden  explained 
how  indivisible  the  interests  of  the  missions 
were,  and  proposed,  instead,  to  cede  the  whole 
to  them;  for  they  had,  by  this  time,  another 
project  at  heart.  So  the  Dominicans  took  pos- 
session of  the  Lower  California  missions,  and 
the  Franciscans  retired  altogether  into  the  un- 
known land  to  the  northward — our  own  Upper 
California. 

This  concludes  oui'  dealings  with  Lower 
California.     The  impatient  reader  may   deem 


70  THE   HISTOKY    OF    CALIFOENIA. 

OHAP.  all  wiitten  on  this  subject  impertinent  to  a 
_^'^  history  of  California.  But  really  it  is  an  es- 
1757.  sential  part  of  the  story.  The  bald  Pacific 
coast  of  California  presented  a  front  that  Span- 
ish enterprise  could  not  penetrate.  The  Jesu- 
its were  then  invoked  to  flank  it  with  their 
mission  strategy — to  approach  it  gradually, 
by  civilizing  the  rude  tribes  of  the  penin- 
sula, by  ascending  the  Colorado,  by  subdu- 
ing the  deserts,  and  planting  settlements  at 
convenient  distances  from  Cape  St.  Lucas  north- 
ward, until  the  goodly  land  described  by  Vis- 
caino  were  reached  and  subjugated.  Father 
Venegas's  History  of  California^  published  at 
Madrid,  1757,  was  the  record  of  this  grand 
flanking  enterprise.  His  California  was  not  the 
peninsula  alone,  but  all  the  unknown  land 
north  of  it,  though  repeated  failures  led  the 
Jesuits  at  last  to  relinquish  their  long-cherished 
hopes  of  going  much  above  tlie  mouth  of  the 
Colorado,  since  every  new  advance  northward 
separated  them  farther  from  their  base  of  sup- 
plies. 

Accompanying  Venegas's  History,  published 
at  Madrid,  1757,  was  a  curious  map,  which 
shows  at  a  glance  wliat  the  pioneers  thought 
our  western  world  was  like.  The  outlines  of 
Lower  California  are  laid  down  with  general 
accuracy.  The  Colorado,  a  little  a):)ove  the 
mouth  of  the  Gila,  stops  short.     But  the  most 


A   MAP   OF   CALITOENIA.  71 

curious  feature  is  a  grand  sea — an  ocean  situ- 
ated within  the  continent  of  North  America- 
stretching  from  Mexico,  in  the  latitude  of  Cape  1757. 
St.  Sebastian,  up  to  the  latitude  of  the  southern 
point  of  Greenland,  and  twenty-five  degrees  in 
width.  Two  straits  connect  this  mediteiTanean 
sea  with  the  Pacific,  in  latitudes  forty-three  and 
forty-six.  From  the  course  of  the  Colorado  it 
is  evident  they  thought  future  discoveries 
would  lead  it  up  to  this  great  sea,  which  on 
the  northeast,  by  a  river  and  through  two  lakes, 
connects  with  Hudson's  Bay.  Midway  between 
Cape  Mendocino  and  Monterey  is  the  Cape  of 
Pines,  and  behind  it,  on  the  north,  a  deep  inden- 
tation in  the  coast — the  only  thing  that  looks 
like  San  Francisco.  Hudson  Kiver  makes  a 
clean  breach  across  to  the  St.  Lawrence,  and 
New  England  is  an  island. 


72  THE    HISTORY    OF   CALUFOENIA. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

OCCUPATION  OF  UPPER  CALIFORNIA  BY  THE 
FRANCISCANS. 

CHAP.  Before  tlie  Franciscans  had  consented  to 
,_^_,  give  up  Lower  California,  Jose  de  Galvez,  the 
1768.  new  visitor-general,  and  afterwards  minister- 
general  for  all  the  Indies,  had  arrived,  bearing 
an  order  from  the  King  of  Spain  to  rediscover 
by  sea,  and  make  a  settlement  at  San  Diego. 
Galvez,  who  seems  to  have  been  a  man  of 
marked  ability  and  enterprise,  at  once  under- 
took the  execution  of  the  king's  design,  and  he 
found  in  Father  Junipero  Serra  a  faithful  and 
enthusiastic  co-operator.  Studying  the  spirit 
rather  than  the  letter  of  his  instructions,  Gal- 
vez with  all  haste  prepared  two  expeditions, 
one  to  go  by  land,  the  other  by  water;  and,  to 
make  success  more  sure,  he  divided  each  of 
these  in  two,  to  start  separately,  but  all  to 
meet  at  San  Diego.  His  fleet  consisted  of  two 
vessels,  the  San  Carlos.,  of  not  more  than  two 
hundred  tons,  and  the  San  Antonio^  both  of 
which  were  brought  over  from  San  Bias  for  the 
purpose. 


GALVEZ    AND    JUNIPEEO    SEEEA.  73 

The  San  Carlos  was  the  flag-ship.  She  oiiap. 
sailed  from  La  Paz  January  9th,  1769,  Father  ^_^_ 
Junipero  having  first  blessed  the  flags,  and  1769. 
Galvez  delivering  a  cheering  address  to  the 
embarkino-  adventurers,  who  numbered  in  all 
sixty-two  persons.  Her  commander  was  Don 
Vicente  Villa.  Among  those  on  board  were 
Friar  Fernando  Parrou,  father  missionary; 
Lieutenant  Pedro  Pages  and  twenty-flve  sol- 
diers, a  baker,  two  blacksmiths,  a  cook,  and 
two  tortilla-makers.  Her  manifest,  which  is 
still  to  be  found  in  the  State  archives  of  Cali- 
fornia, includes  Indian  corn  and  flour,  crackers, 
home-made  sugar,  peas,  beans,  rice,  hams,  fish, 
chocolate  (but  no  cofi^ee  or  tea),  a  little  brandy 
and  wine,  plenty  of  dried  meat,  one  thousand 
dollars  in  small  coin,  candles  for  the  churches, 
fish-oil  and  lamp-wicks  for  light,  and  supplies 
of  other  sorts  sufficient  to  aftord  very  comfort- 
able living,  for  both  cabin  and  forecastle,  du- 
ring a  long  voyage  or  a,  tedious  delay  on  a 
desolate  shore.  Galvez  accompanied  the  San 
Carlos  in  a  little  vessel  as  far  as  Cape  St.  Lucas, 
and  saw  her  fairly  to  sea,  with  the  wind  in  the 
right  quarter,  before  he  turned  back. 

The  next  off  was  the  San  Antonio^  which 
started  from  Cape  St.  Lucas  on  the  15th  of 
February,  commended,  as  her  consort  had  been, 
to  the  patronage  of  St.  Joseph.  Her  com- 
mander was  Juan  Perez,  who  was  born  on  the 


74  THE    HISTOEY    OF    CALIFOENIA. 

CHAP.  Island  of  Majorca,  and  had  already  won  fame  as 
^^'    a  pilot  in  the  Philippine  trade.     Among  her 

1769.  passengers  were  two  priests.  The  Sau  Antonio 
had  been  thoroughly  overhauled  at  St.  Lucas, 
Galvez  himself  seeing  that  not  a  barnacle  was 
left  on  her,  and  that  her  keel  was  as  sound  as  on 
the  day  it  was  laid.  She  carried  ornaments  for 
the  church ;  all  sorts  of  utensils  for  tent,  house, 
or  field;  flower,  vegetable,  and  fruit  seeds  for 
the  garden  and  orchard,  and  grain  for  the 
valleys.  Indeed,  all  that  was  thought  necessary 
for  the  foundation  of  at  least  three  missions 
was  dispatched  in  one  or  the  other  of  these 
vessels,  or  overland. 

The  land  expedition  was  placed  in  command 
of  Gaspar  de  Portald,  who,  at  the  time,  was 
Governor  of  Lower  California,  and  a  captain 
of  dragoons.  The  next  officer  in  rank  was  Don 
Fernando  Rivera  y  Moncada,  who  was  captain  of 
a  company  of  foot-soldiers.  Rivera  had  made  the 
tour  of  the  northern  missions  in  the  preceding  fall, 
and  collected  men,  provisions,  horses,  mules,  and 
two  hundred  head  of  cattle,  with  which  to  stock 
the  unknown  country  they  were  to  settle.  On 
the  24th  of  March  he  left  the  frontier  mission 
for  the  northern  wilderness.  In  his  company 
were  Father  Juan  Crespi,  a  pilot  who  under- 
took to  keep  an  itinerary,  twenty-five  foot-soldiers 
who  wore  leathern  bucklers,  three  muleteers, 


WHITE   MEN    ENTEK    CALIFORNIA   TO    LIVE.  75 

and  an  unnumbered  host  of  Christian  Indians, 


■^> 


from  the  peninsular  missions. 

Last  of  all  started   Governor  Portala's  com-    1769. 
pany,  in   May, — Father   Junipero,   though   in 
wretched  health  for  a  journey  into  the  desert, 
being  punctually  at  the  rendezvous. 

These  four  detachments  reached  San  Diego, 
but  not  precisely  in  the  order  of  their  starting. 
The  first  vessel  in  was  the  San  Antonio.  The 
San  Carlos  arrived  twenty  days  behind  her, 
having  lost,  by  scurvy,  all  of  her  crew  but  one 
sailor  and  the  cook,  and  several  of  the  soldiers. 
Rivera's  company  was  in  by  the  14th  of  May, 
and  PortaM's,  after  a  pleasant  jaunt  of  forty-six 
days,  at  a  time  of  year  when  the  landscape  is 
most  charming  and  the  weather  most  delicious, 
came  in  sight  on  the  1st  of  July.  There  was  a  Julyi. 
great  time  in  San  Diego  on  that  day,  when  all 
who  were  alive  of  the  two  hundred  and  fifty 
that  made  up  the  total  of  the  four  expeditions 
met  again.  The  vessels  fired  salutes,  the  sol- 
diers discharged  round  after  round  for  joy.  The 
1st  of  July,  1769,  is  marked  in  the  almanacs  as 
the  birthday  of  both  Wellington  and  Napoleon, 
but  it  is  memorable  in  our  history,  as  Randolph, 
in  his  admirable  Outline  of  the  History  of  Cali- 
fornia^ well  remarks,  for  a  greater  event  than 
either — it  was  the  first  day  that  white  men 
entered  Upper  California  with  the  purpose  to 
live  and  die  there. 


76  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFOEXIA. 

Just  as  soon  as  the  mutual  congratulations 
were  ended,  the  work  of  foundino;  a  mission 
iVG'j.  commenced.  For  this  the  process  was  to  select 
"  ^  ■  a  suitable  spot,  and  take  formal  possession  of 
it  in  the  name  of  Spain.  A  tent  was  erected, 
or  an  arbor,  or  booth,  or  rude  log-house  con- 
structed for  a  temporary  church,  and  into  it  the 
sacred  ornaments  were  carried.  A  cross  was 
planted  before  its  entrance,  a  j^atron  saint  was 
named,  a  clergyman  for  the  post  designated. 
Then  all  the  premises  were  sprinkled  with  holy 
water,  the  candles  were  lighted,  mass  was  said 
and  sung  (the  soldiers  with  their  fire-arms  doing 
duty  for  the  organ,  and  the  smoke  of  exploding 
gunpowder  answering  for  incense),  and  a  ser- 
mon was  preached.  The  next  task  was  to  draw 
in  the  Indians.  Presents  of  cloth  and  food 
served  to  catch  the  adults,  and  bits  of  domestic 
sugar  captivated  the  children.  The  natives 
were  to  be  convinced  that  the  stransrers  came  as 
friends,  to  j)rotect  them  from  their  enemies  and  to 
do  them  good.  As  their  confidence  was  gained, 
they  were  to  be  allured  away  from  their  idle 
wandering  habits,  persuaded  to  settle  in  villages 
near  the  mission,  instructed  in  farming  and  the 
simple  arts,  taught  the  elements  of  the  Catholic 
faith,  and,  as  soon  as  they  consented  and  seemed 
disposed  to  their  new  life,  to  be  baptized  and 
reckoned   converts.     Father   Junipero    consid- 


GOVERlSrOrw    PORTALA    at   SATJ    FKANCISCO.  4  4 

end  himself  fairly  started  in  this  work  in  a  chap. 
fortnight  after  his  arrival  at  San  Diego.  ^L. 

Leaving  him  at  his  labor  of  love,  than  which  1709. 
nothing  could  more  delight  him,  the  San  Anto- 
nio^ with  all  the  sailors  who  were  able,  was 
dispatched  to  San  Bias  -with  tidings  of  what 
had  been  done,  and  to  fetch  up  additional  sup- 
plies. It  is  a  significant  intimation  of  the  perils 
of  the  coast,  and  the  state  of  navigation  in  those 
times,  that,  though  she  made  the  trip  in  twenty 
days,  she  lost  nine  men  on  the  way. 

Meanwhile,  Governor  Portala,  with  soldiers,  July  u. 
priests,  muleteers,  and  Indians,  sixty-five  per- 
sons in  all,  and  a  pack  train  of  provisions, 
started  on  the  14th  of  July  to  rediscover  Mon- 
terey; for  Galvez  had  charged  him  to  accom- 
plish the  never-executed  scheme  of  Philip  III., 
so  carefully  laid  down  one  hundred  and  sixty- 
three  years  before.  Over  six  months  PortaM 
was  gone  on  this  errand.  He  stopped  at  Mon- 
terey and  set  up  a  cross,  but  never  dreamed  it 
was  the  place  he  sought. 

Pushing  still  northward,  he  came  upon  a  land- 
locked, hill-encompassed  bay  or  lake.  East- 
ward the  land  rose  gently  to  a  lofty  range  of 
hills,  beyond  which  peered  the  blue  peak  of 
a  far-distant  mountain.  On  the  north  were 
mountains ;  on  the  west  high  hills,  whose  sandy 
slopes  descended  even  to  the  water's  edge. 
They  said  they  recognized  this  as  a  spot  which 


78  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  had  been  described,  though  where,  or  in  what, 
does  not  appear.     That  it  was  a  fit  place  for  a 

17G9.  mission  was  clear  to  them  all. 

J"  y-  Then  the  priests  remembered  that  when  Gal- 
vez  had  suggested  the  three  names  that  were 
to  be  given  to  the  three  missions  that  they 
were  to  found,  Father  Junipero  had  exclaimed, 
with  much  grief  in  his  countenance,  "  But  is 
there  no  mission  for  Father  St.  Francis  V  and 
that  Galvez  had  replied,  gravely,  as  if  it  were 
not  a  sudden  thought,  "  If  St.  Francis  wants 
a  mission,  let  him  show  us  his  port,  and  we  will 
put  one  there."  They  accepted  the  token; 
good  St.  Francis  had  guided  their  errant 
steps  and  brought  them  to  this  port,  so  they 
named  it  San  Francisco.  This  is  the  first  un- 
questioned account  of  a  visit  to  San  Fran- 
cisco. 

That  Sir  Francis  Drake  had  spent  several 
weeks  here,  recruiting,  has  already  been  shown 
as  probable.  That  Viscaiuo  did  not  visit  it, 
has  been  shown  as  equally  probable;  and  yet 
PortaM's  company  recognized  the  place  from 
the  descriptions,  and,  curiously  enough,  before 
they  had  made  out  whether  the  broad  sheet  of 
water  at  their  feet  was  a  lake  or  a  bay ! 

It  seems  possible,  although  this  is  only  a  sur- 
mise, that  the  port  may  have  been  visited 
casually  by  some  of  the  Spanish  navigators, 
whose  oral  descriptions,  coinciding  with  Fran- 


TROUBLES    AT   SAN   DIEGO.  '79 

CIS  Drake's  written  accounts,  led  tliem  to  speak  chap. 
of  it  as  San  Francisco — the  given  name  of  the  ,_.^__, 
discoverer  being  preserved  in  a  form  not  offen-  1769. 
sive  to  the  prejudices  of  the  Spaniards,  and 
calculated  to  secure  a  saint's  protection;  but 
afterwards,  as  the  minutiaB  of  their  story  faded 
into  indistinctness,  the  glowing  accounts  still 
surviving  were  presumed  to  refer  to  the  har- 
bor of  Monterey.     So,  much  of  the  eulogy  that 
was  originally  spoken  of  San  Francisco  harbor 
may  have  been  put  to  the  credit  of  Monterey ; 
yet,  when  the  former  place  was  revisited,  the 
locality  was  recognized  as   already  described 
under  the  name  it  now  bears. 

Portald  and  his  company  returned  in  about 
six  months,  and  thrilling  news  they  heard  from 
the  little  party  that  had  guarded  the  San  Diego 
Mission.  The  Indians,  coveting  the  cloth  which 
the  missionaries  only  doled  out  to  them  very 
judiciously,  took  every  opportunity  to  steal  it, 
and  even  cut  out  pieces  of  the  sails  of  the  ves- 
sel. Of  course  the  missionaries  protected  their 
property  by  force.  On  the  15th  of  August, Aug.  15. 
the  Indians  came  down  in  full  fighting  feather 
and  began  pillaging.  The  score  of  whites  and 
their  Christian  Indian  retainers  from  Lower 
California  flew  to  arms,  whose  explosions  soon 
commanded  peace.  In  the  struggle,  one  of  the 
priests  was  wounded  and  a  Christian  Indian 
killed.     The  savages  saw  the  strangers  were 


80  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA 

CHAP,  too  mucli  for  them,  and  treated  tliem  from  tliat 
^__^  time,  for  a  long  while,  as  their  kind  superiors. 
1770.   But  other  troubles,  and  not  of  Indian  origin, 
^^^'^'^^-  awaited  the  San  Diego  pioneers.     Provisions 
fell  short,  and  the  sad  resolution  was  taken  at 
last,  that  UDless  supplies  came  by  the  20tli  of 
March,  they  must  abandon  all  and  return  home. 
Providence  kindly  remembered  the  dispirited 
company,  for  on  the  very  day  before  the  one 
set  for  the  abandonment  of  all,  the  Sa7i  Anto- 
nio  sailed   into  the  harbor  with  supplies  in 
abundance. 

PortaM   now   started    again   northward   by 
.  land,  and  this  time  found  Monterey  without  a 
question,  and  was  satisfied  of  the  fact. 

The  Sa)i  Antonio,  too,  ran  up  the  coast,  with 
Father  Junipero  on  board,  and  entered  Monte- 
rey harbor  eight  days  after  Portald,  on  the  31st 
of  March.  Here  again  they  took  possession  in 
the  name  of  the  king,  hung  up  their  bells  on 
the  trees,  rang  them  out  merrily,  builded  the 
chapel,  blessed  all,  said  mass,. sang  the  Veni 
Creator  and  a  Te  Deum. 

Portalii,  in  the  San  Antonio,  returned  to 
Mexico,  taking  with  him,  or  sending  overland 
under  Rivera,  the  whole  of  the  company,  ex- 
cept Father  Junipero,  five  priests,  Fages,  and 
thirty  soldiers.  The  Indians  told  those  who 
remained,  as  they  sat  under  those  dark  Mon- 
terey pines,  ghostly  stories  of  how  the  crosses 


FATHER    JUNIPERO.  81 

slilned  that  eacli  white  mau  wore  on  liis  breast  chap. 
the  first  time  they  had  passed  through  there,  not 
knowing  the  place ;  and  of  the  gi'eat  cross  that  ivTo. 
was  pLnnted  hj  Portahi  before  he  knew  he  was 
at  the  spot  he  coveted ;  how  it  would  grow  at 
night  till  its  point  rested  among  the  stars,  glis- 
tening the  while  with  a  splendor  that  outshone 
the  sun ;  that  when  their  superstitious  dread 
of  it  wore  off,  they  had  approached,  planted 
arrows  and  feathers  in  the  earth  around  it,  and 
hung  strings  of  sardines,  as  their  choicest  offer- 
ings, on  its  anns. 

It  was  like  a  gala  day  when  Galvez,  at  the 
palace  of  the  viceroy,  surrounded  by  distin- 
guished citizens,  heard  from  the  mouth  of  Por- 
tald  that  Monterey  had  been  discovered,  and 
that  three  missions  were  estal)lished  in  Upper 
California.  The  bells  of  the  cathedral  and  of 
all  the  churches  were  rung  for  joy,  and  every 
generous  pulse  in  New  Spain  beat  faster  for  the 
glorious  news. 

Father  Junipero  did  not  stay  long  at  Mon- 
terey ;  but,  establishing  a  mission  close  by  on  the 
Carmel  River,  made  that  his  residence,  though 
he  spent  much  time  in  travelling  about  the 
country,  looking  up  wild  Indians,  and  winning 
them  fi'om  their  savage  ways,  establishing  mis- 
sions, watching  his  convert^,  and  baptizing  the 
little  ones.  He  was  the  president  of  all  the 
missions  in  Upper  California  until  his  death. 

6 


82  THE   HISTORY    OF   CALIFOENIA. 

CHAP.  When  a  new  mission  was  to  be  established  he 
^_^J_,  would  take  a  couple  of  priests,  an  escort  of  sol- 
1784.  diers,  and  a  train  of  mules,  packed  with  tke 
necessaries  for  a  journey,  and  the  furniture  for 
a  church.  Then,  wandering  over  the  moun- 
tains, and  peering  into  all  the  pleasant  valleys, 
until  he  found  a  place  to  suit,  he  would  hang 
the  bells  on  the  trees,  and  himself  pull  lustily 
the  rope,  while  he  shouted,  "Hear,  hear!  O 
ye  Gentiles !  come  to  tlie  lioly  cliurch."  Then, 
having  set  up  the  church  tent,  blessed  and  dedi- 
cated it,  and  appointed  a  pastor,  he  would  go 
out  bunting  for  parishioners.  He  lived  until 
the  year  1784,  when,  at  his  own  mission  on 
the  Carmel,  he  died. 

This  venerable  Franciscan  pioneer  was  a  man 
worthy  of  the  work  he  undertook.  He  was 
the  son  of  humble  parents,  who  resided  in  one 
of  the  islands  of  the  Mediterranean,  and  from 
his  childhood  was  educated  for  the  church.  He 
showed  a  wonderful  faculty  for  attaching  to 
himself  the  affections  of  the  natives,  and  seemed 
by  his  presence  to  charm  them  into  a  new  mode 
of  life.  It  is  said  that,  even  before  cultivated 
audiences,  he  would  hammer  his  breast  with  a 
stone,  and  hold  his  ilesh  in  the  flame  of  a  can- 
dle, to  show  that  pain  had  no  terrors  in  view 
of  the  love  for  Christ  that  filled  him.  In  tra- 
velling, which  he  usually  did  on  foot,  though 
lame  from  a  chronic  ulcer  on  his  leg,  he  wore 


PALOU'S    LIFE   OF   JUNIPERO.  83 

sandals  and  never  stockings.  The  visitor-gen- 
eral's-proposal  for  an  expedition  to  the  north  of 
his  desolate  field  in  Lower  California  chimed  1784 
exactly  with  his  desire,  and  Galvez  himself  did 
not  more  urgently  strive  than  he  to  make  the 
undertaking  a  success.  When  he  came  up  to 
Portala's  rendezvous  on  the  Lower  California 
frontier  to  start  for  San  Diego,  he  was  so  lame 
that  he  could  scarcely  mount  and  dismount 
from  his  mule.  Portald  gave  orders  for  a  litter 
to  be  made  for  his  conveyance,  hut  the  tender- 
hearted father  wa)uld  not  hear  of  burdening 
the  Indians  to  carry  him.  After  a  prayer  that 
this  cup  might  be  spared  him,  he  called  one  of 
the  muleteers  and  asked  him  what  to  do  for  his 
sore  foot  and  leg ;  but  the  muleteer  modestly 
demurred  that  he  was  no  sui'geon,  and  was  only 
equal  to  the  task  of  curing  the  sore  backs  of 
beasts.  "Then  consider  me  a  beast,"  said  the 
father,  "  and  my  limb  as  his  back."  The 
muleteer,  under  shelter  of  this  fancy,  ventured 
upon  the  cure,  and  applied  to  the  ailing  limb 
a  salve  of  mashed  herbs  and  tallow.  The  next 
raornins:  the  father  was  in  excc41ent  condition 
and  royal  spirits.  He  mounted  his  mule  and 
rode  off,  apparently  as  well  as  the  rest  them. 

Junipero's  life  was  vrritten  ]>y  a  devoted 
friend  and  admirer,  Father  Francisco  Palou, 
the  first  priest  w'ho  had  charge  of  the  Mission 
Dolores,  and  his  book  was  doubtless  the  first 


84  THE   HISTORY   OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  book  written   at   San  Francisco  or  in  Upper 
^^'    California.     It   was   published   in    Mexico    in 

1787.  1787,  and  witli  it  a  map  of  the  country,  wbich 
shows  the  nine  missions  and  the  three  presidios, 
and  the  road  between  them,  all  lying  near  the 
coast,  while  to  the  eastward  was  a  blank. 

Before  Father  Junipero  Serra  rested  from  his 
labors  he  had  founded  eio-ht  missions.  Their 
location  speaks  loudly  for  the  judgment  and 
taste  of  the  fathers.  They  occupy  the  very 
choicest  valleys  that  snuggle  between  the  coast 
ranges.  Generally  convenient  to  the  sea,  or,  if 
not,  close  by  the  stream  that  dries  up  latest 
during  the  long  droughts,  their  vicinity  is 
green  when  the  other  plains  are  parched.  The 
best  pasturage,  the  fattest  land,  the  prettiest 
valleys  to  look  down  upon  from  the  mountain 
passes,  or  up  toward  from  the  sea,  were  chosen 
for  mission  sites.  Perhaps  the  least  desirable 
of  all  them  for  purely  mission  purposes  was 
the  one  at  San  Francisco.  Though  the  Fran- 
ciscan order  owned  no  richly  freighted  gal- 
leon annually  sweeping  down  the  coast,  and 
generally  needing  a  harbor,  yet  it  was  so 
charged  with  the  traditional  policy  of  Spain, 
that  the  Bay  of  San  Francisco  pleaded  for  a 
mission  on  account  of  its  position.  Indeed, 
Father  Junipero  long  had  his  eye  on  the  sites 
of  both  San  Francisco  and  Santa  Clara,  and 
when  he  went  to  Mexico  to  straighten  up  some 


MISSION   DOLORES  FOUNDED.  85 

other  matters,  lie  obtained  a  promise  from  the  chap. 
viceroy  that  they  should  be  founded  so  soon  as  ._^_ 
communication   was   opened  with   them   from    1773. 
Montere}^   by   land.      Captain    Juan   Bautista 
Anza  effected  that  in  1773,  reported  the  fact  to 
the  viceroy,  and  returned  with  quite  a  company 
of  families  in  1776.     Meanwhile  the  Scm  Carlos 
had  gone  up  the  coast,  and  by  actually  entering 
the  Golden  Gate,  or  the  Gulf  of  the  Farallones, 
as  they  called  it,  in  June,  1775,  demonstrated    1775. 
that   the   land-locked    l)ay — whose  two    arms 
stretched,  one  to  the  north  till  it  met  another 
great  bay  into  which  St.  Francis  river,  fed  hj 
five  other  rivers,  flowed,  and  the  other  south- 
easterly some  fifteen  leagues — was  open  from 
the  Pacific  for  vessels  to  sail  into  it  at  pleasure. 

On  the  17th  of  September,  the  presidio  of 
San  Francisco  was  founded.  An  expedition  was 
organized  to  explore  the  interior — a  portion  to 
go  by  water  up  San  Pablo  Bay,  a  portion  by 
land.  The  latter  strayed  into  one  of  the  canons 
of  the  Diablo  range  and  discovered  the  San 
Joaquin  Valley. 

On  the  9tli  of  the  next  month,  October, 
1776 — year  ever  memorable  as  the  date  of  1776. 
American  Independence — the  mission  "  Dp  los 
Dolores  de  Nuestro  Padre  San  Francisco  de 
Asis"  was  established.  There  were  several 
Saints  Francisco — Fi-ancisco  of  Paula,  Francisco 
of  Sales,  and  Francisco  of  Asisis,  the  founder 


8(3  THE    HISTORY    OF   CALIFORNIA. 

(51IAP.  of  the  order  of  Frauciscans.     This  mission  was 

, ^__,  in  honor  of  the  sufferings  of  him    of  Asisis, 

177G.  and  to  av^oid  confusion  it  soon  came  to  be  known 
as  the  Mission  Dolores,  while  to  the  presidio 
and  the  fort  cluns:  the  saint's  name.  The  first 
site  chosen  for  the  mission  was  near  the  "  la- 
goon," back  of  Russian  Hill;  but  the  winds 
were  so  bitter  there  that  soon  it  was  removed 
to  the  spot  on  the  creek  where  the  crumbling 
old  church  and  some  of  the  houses  that  sur- 
rounded it  still  stand.  It  was  the  sixth  in  the 
order  of  the  founding  of  the  Upper  California 
missions,  and  as  late  as  1802  was  the  most 
northerly  of  the  eighteen  then  in  existence. 

The  order  of  the  establishment  of  the  twenty- 
one  missions  in  Upper  California  was  as  fol- 
lows : — 

San  Diego,  July  16,  1769. 

San  Carlos  de  Monterey  (soon  removed  from 
Monterey  to  the  Carmel  River),  June  3,  1770. 

San  Antonio  de  Padua  (thirteen  leagues 
from  San  Miguel),  July  14,  1771. 

San  Gabriel  (near  Los  Angeles),  September 
8,  1771. 

San  Luis  Obispo,  September  1,  1772. 

San  Francisco  (Dolores),  October  9,  1776. 

San  Juan  Capistrano  (between  Los  Angeles 
and  San  Diego),  November  1,  1776. 

Santa  Clara,  January  18,  1777. 


ORDER    OF    MISSION    ESTABLISHMENTS.  87 

San   Buenaventura   (southeast  of  and   near  chai'. 
Santa  Barbara),  March  31,  1782.  J^^_ 

Santa  Barbara,  December  4,  1786.  1787. 

La  Purisima  Concepclon  (on  the  Santa  Inez 
Kiver),  December  8,  1787. 

Santa  Cruz,  August  28,  1791. 

Soledad  (on  the  Salinas  River),  October  9, 
1791. 

San  Jose,  June  11,  1797. 

San  Juan  Bautista  (on  the  San  Juan  River), 
June  24,  1797. 

San  Miguel  (on  the  Salinas  River),  July  25, 
1797. 

San  Fernando  Rey  (near,  and  northerly  from, 
Los  Angeles),  September  8,  1797. 

San  Luis  Rey   de  Francia   (thirt.een  and  a 
half  leagues  from  San  Diego),  June  13,  1798. 

Santa  Inez  (twelve  leagues  from  Santa  Bar- 
bara), September  17,  1804. 

San  Rafael   (north  of  San  Francisco  Bay), 
December  14,  1819. 

San  Francisco  de  Solano  (Sonoma),  August 
25,  1823. 


88  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 


CHAPTER  VH 

THE  ABORIGINES. 

CHAP.  When  explorers  come  upon  a  new  land,  if 
^^^'    tliey  iind  it  heavily  timbered,  or  the  intervals 

1776.  rank  with  wild  grass,  they  know  that  cultiva- 
tion will  make  it  yield  richly  of  grains  and 
fruit ;  bat  if  it  bear  no  trees,  or  only  scraggy 
and  stinted  ones,  and  a  thin,  scant  herbage  on 
the  open  country,  they  condemn  it  as  unfit  for 
all  farming  purposes.  Californians  have  the  best 
of  reasons  for  hoping  that  the  aborigines  of  a 
land  do  not  indicate,  by  the  degree  of  their 
nobleness  or  degradation,  the  style  of  men  that 
will  be  produced  under  civilized  auspices  upon 
the  same  soil ;  for,  of  all  wretchedly  debased 
and  utterly  brutal  beings,  the  Indians  of  Cali- 
fornia were  the  farthest  fallen  lielow  the  averajxe 
Indian  type.  They  were  neither  brave  nor  bold, 
generous  nor  spirited.  They  seem  to  have  pos- 
sessed none  of  the  noble  characteristics  that, 
with  a  slio-ht  colorino-  of  romance,  make  heroes 
of  the  red  men  of  the  Atlantic  slopes,  .and  win 
for  them  om*  ready  sympathy.     We  hear  of  no 


THE   ^iBOEIGIXES.  89 

orators  amons^  them,  no  bold  braves  terribly  chap 

•  •  VTT 

resenting  and  contesting  to  tlie  last  the  usurpa-  ,___, 
tions  of  the  whites.  They  were  "Diggers,"  i776. 
filthy  and  cowardly,  succumbing  wdthout  a  blow 
to  the  rule  of  foreign  masters.  As  redeeming 
them  from  utter  brutality,  it  is  refreshing  to  see 
occasional  glimpses  of  humor  in  them,  and  a 
disposition  to  make  fun  of  the  missionary  when 
his  back  'was  turned.  But  under  the  father's 
eye  they  cowered  like  children  on  the  low 
benches  before  the  old-time  pedagogue  ^yielding 
the  ferule.  Perhaps  the  mild,  motherly  sort  of 
treatment  which  priests  met  them  with,  dis- 
armed them.  Perhaps,  if  they  had  been  subject 
to  the  rouo;h  handlino;  that  the  Indian  tribes 
generally  received  from  English  settlers,  they 
might  have  fired  up,  and  displayed  some  of  the 
violence  and  savage  fury  that  make  us  respect 
the  Indians  of  the  East  and  the  North.  Per- 
haps it  was  in  part  because  they  were  treated 
as  children,  that  they  grew  into  simple,  childish 
ways. 

They  were  as  contemptible  physically  as 
intellectually,  and  evinced  as  little  traces  of 
conscience  as  of  a  reasoning  faculty.  To  Drake's 
party  they  showed  a  disposition  to  offer  sacii- 
fices,  thinking  the  sea-king's  jolly  tars  to  be 
veritable  gods.  Venegas  thought  the  Lower 
Californiaus  to  be  the  most  stupid  and  weak, 
in  both  body  and  mind,  of  all  mortals.     But  the 


90  THE    HI3T0EY    OF    CALIFOEKIA. 

settlers  of  Upper  California,  who  had  seen  both, 
thouo-ht  the  northern  natives  far  inferior  to  the 
1776.  southern.  Humboldt,  from  all  his  I'eading,  con- 
cluded them  as  low  in  the  scale  of  humanity  as 
the  inhabitants  of  Van  Diemen's  Land.  Though 
m  many  respects  one  people,  the  gibberish  they 
spoke  varied  widely  in  different  localities. 
Those  about  San  Diego  could  not  understand  a 
Word  of  the  language  of  those  sixty  miles  north, 
and  every  high  mountain-range  divided  dialects. 
I«  all  tlieu'  customs,  their  religious  notions, 
and  their  habits,  the  residents  of  diiferent  val- 
leys  differed,  though  not  widely.  Father  Bos- 
cana,  of  the  San  Juan  Capistrano  Mission,  left  a 
pretty  full  account  of  the  Acagchemem  nation, 
who  constituted  his  parishioners,  and  who  seem 
to  have  been  about  the  best  of  the  whole, 
though  that  may  be  simply  because  they  found 
a  more  affectionate  historian  than  did  any  of 
their  brethren.  Mr.  Robinson,  the  translator 
of  Boscana's  paper,  presumed  that  the  descrip- 
tions might  be  taken  as  true,  with  some  slight 
variations,  of  all  the  tribes  in  Upper  California. 
We  may  tak(^,  then,  the  picture  of  the  tribe  that 
occupied  the  sea-coast  forty  or  fifty  miles  below 
Los  Angeles,  as  representatives  of  the  people 
whom  the  missionaries  found  in  Uppei'  Cali- 
fornia, and  whom  Father  Junipero  learned  to 
love  as  if  they  were  his  own  flesh. 

They  held  that  the  inferior  regions  were  once 


ABORIGINAL    MYTHOLOGY.  91 

on  a  time  married,  and  their  children  were  the  chap. 
sand  and  soil,  rocks,  stones,  flints  for  their  ar-  ^_^_ 
rows,  trees,  herbs,  grass,  and  animals.  There  1776. 
was  a  phantom  whom  they  called  Chinigchinich, 
an  orphan  from  the  beginning,  who  could  see 
in  the  darkest  night  as  clearly  as  at  noon.  This 
powerful  being  defended  the  good  and  chastised 
the  bad ;  he  was  always  and  everywhere  present, 
but  hailed  from  the  stars  as  his  home.  Him 
they  regarded  as  the  creator  of  their  race,  and 
as  their  great  Captain.  The  land  where  they 
lived  was  the  first  land  made — they  seemed  to 
believe  that  there  was  very  little  beyond  it. 
The  sea  was  at  first  but  a  fresh-water  stream, 
coursing  around  their  little  earth ;  but  the  fishes, 
putting  their  heads  together,  agreed  and  man- 
aged to  break  a  i  ock,  inside  of  which  was  gall ; 
emptying  this  into  the  river,  the  waters  grew 
bitter,  and  swelled  to  an  ocean,  and  the  thought- 
ful fishes  were  rewarded  with  plenty  of  room 
and  a  wholesome  pickle  to  sport  in. 

To  the  great  Captain,  or  god  of  the  long 
name,  they  accredited  all  the  precepts  of  morality 
that  they  taught  their  children,  and  to  his  com- 
mands they  traced  their  customs  and  mode  of 
life.  He  told  them  to  build  a  temple ;  so  in 
every  town,  close  by  the  chiefs  house,  was  the 
oval  enclosure,  made  of  the  branches  of  trees 
and  mats,  surrounded  by  stakes  of  wood  driven 
into  the  ground,  which  constituted  the  temple. 


92  THE    HISTORY    OF   CALIFORNIA. 

("HAP.  It  was  a  very  sacred  spot,  within  or  near  whicli 
no  irreverent  act  was  ever  performed  ;  for  the 

1V70.  god  himself  was  there,  in  the  person  of  a  coyote- 
skin,  stuifed  with  feathers,  claws,  talons,  and 
beaks,  which  doubtless  symbolized  the  strength, 
swiftness,  fierceness,  and  power  of  the  birds 
and  beasts  from  which  they  were  taken.  They 
worshipped  him  with  grotesque  dances  and 
hideous  yells,  or  sometimes  in  perfect  silence, 
squatting  in  most  awkward  attitudes  in  his 
preseDce,  and  retaining  one  position  while  the 
ceremony  of  adoration  lasted.  His  temple  was 
the  "  city  of  refuge,"  where  the  most  outrageous 
criminal  was  safe,  and  after  one  visit  could  go 
free,  though  the  crime  might  be  punished  upon 
the  descendants  of  the  offender  at  once  or  after 
the  lapse  of  generations  ! 

The  boys  were  whipped  with  nettles,  and 
laid  upon  ants'  nests,  that  the  stings  of  the 
insects  might  make  them  courageous  under  the 
infliction  of  pain.  They  were  branded  by 
burning  raoxas  upon  the  fleshy  part  of  the  arm, 
to  put  them  above  the  consideration  of  trifling 
ailments.  They  were  forbidden  to  warm  them- 
selves at  a  fire,  lest  they  came  short  of  the 
toughness  of  men ;  and,  until  they  were  heads 
of  families,  ceitain  food  they  must  not  touch. 
To  violate  any  of  these  orders,  would  let  loose 
the  Evil  Spirit  on  them,  and  provoke  the  ire  of 
the  god. 


CUSTOMS,    MANXEBS,    DRESS.  93 

The  2-irls  were  trained  to  work  irom  infancy,  chap. 

.  VII 

At  ten,  to  heighten  their  beauty,  their  busts  ,_^^_ 
and  faces  were  tattooed,  the  flesh  being  pricked  irre. 
with  the  thorn  of  the  cactus  until  it  bled,  and 
a  soft  charcoal  rubbed  in,  in  lieu  of  India  ink. 
On  arriving  at  womanhood,  they  were  placed 
on  a  bed  of  branches  over  some  heated  stones 
that  were  lain  in  a  hole  in  the  ground,  and 
there  kept  with  little  or  no  food  for  three  days, 
while  ancient  hags  danced  around  the  pile, 
singing  songs  well  calculated  to  inspire  the 
Avretched,  perspiring  beauties  with  a  sense  of 
the  vast  responsibilities  that  pertained  to  their 
new  condition.  Betrothed  by  their  parents  in 
infancy,  they  were  married  with  a  good  deal  of 
ceremony,  and  divorced  without  any,  at  their 
own  or  their  husbands'  will. 

A  skin  thrown  over  his  shoulders  constituted 
the  full  dress  of  a  gentleman.  Mats  made  of 
squirrel-skins  twisted  into  rope,  sewn  together, 
and  tolerably  fitted  to  the  person,  was  a  fine 
lady's  common  dress.  Add  a  fringe  of  grass 
reaching  to  the  knees,  hang  ornaments  of  beads 
and  shells  upon  her  neck,  and  varnish  her  face 
with  colored  mud,  and  she  was  dressed  for  a 
grand  occasion.  The  San  Francisco  Indians  are 
said  to  have  used  a  much  more  simple  style  of 
dress,  plastering  their  whole  bodies  with  mud, 
especially  in  the  cooler  months  of  the  ^'■ear — 
though,  if  this  were  so,  the  fashion  came   in 


94  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  vogue  probably  after  Drake's  day,  or  was  re- 
served for  winter. 

1776.  The  men  made  bows  and  arrows,  baskets, 
and  nets  for  fishing,  killed  some  small  game, 
and  fished  a  little,  when  the  mood  was  on ;  but 
most  of  the  work  was  done  by  the  other  sex. 
The  women  went  to  the  woods,  gathered  the 
acorns  that  were  a  staple  of  food,  picked  the 
berries,  dug  the  edible  roots,  gathered  the  fire- 
wood, cooked,  kept  house,  and  cared  for  the 
children.  The  a3);a5  they  mashed,  wet  up 
with  water  into  a  dough,  and  cooked  between 
hot  stones.  Buckeyes  they  rubbed  down  with 
water  into  a  thin,  gruel,  and  boiled  by  throwing 
hot  stones  into  the  mess.  They  held  it  a  god- 
send when  a  whale  was  stranded  on  the  coast : 
it  relieved  them  from  the  necessity  of  work  for 
weeks ;  for,  like  most  gourmands  who  prefer 
their  game  a  little  high,  they  thought  the  blub- 
ber improved  by  moderate  age  ! 

Dancing  was  a  very  important  part  of  all 
their  entertainments  and  of  their  worship.  Ex- 
cepting at  a  few  special  feasts,  the  dances  were 
generally  veiy  modest,  the  sexes  dancing  apart 
from  each  other,  though  in  the  same  room. 
Their  god  was  a  great  admirer  of  a  vigorous 
dancer ;  so  dancing  was  a  virtue,  and  this  virtue 
at  least  was  popular.  War  was  never  their 
passion  ;  but  if  one  of  a  tri})e  stole  a  squirrel  or 
an  ornament  from  another  tribe,  they  generally 


NATIVE    MEDICAL    PEACTICE.  95 

indorsed  his  tlieft,  and  maintained  their  honor  chap. 
with  their  arms.     The  war  beius;  ended,  the    ^^^- 

^  -m-  .    -^^' 

thief  was  dealt  with  as  he  deserved.  Yet  it  1775 
appears  that  they  lived  very  peaceably  most  of 
the  time,  and  did  very  little  quarrelling.  On 
occasion  of  their  grand  feasts,  scalps  taken  in 
war  were  exhibited  on  a  pole  planted  on  a  tem- 
ple. The  women  and  children  who  were  cap- 
tured in  w ar  generally  stayed  Avitli  their  captors 
for  life. 

Every  tow^n  had  its  chief,  but  he  enjoyed 
very  little  consideration  in  the  town  councils. 
If  he  transgressed  his  authority,  they  deposed 
him.  His  person  was  held  in  veneration,  al- 
though his  advice  might  be  treated  vvdth  sov- 
ereign contempt. 

Their  medical  practice  was  exceedingly  sim- 
ple. Herbs,  crushed  or  bruised,  and  applied  as 
a  poultice,  was  the  treatment  for  most  external 
diseases.  For  slight  internal  ailments  they 
smoked  the  same  herbs,  or  whipped  the  part 
affected  with  nettles.  For  serious  diseases  the 
cold-water  bath  was  a  common  remedy;  that 
failing,  the  patient  was  laid  upon  the  dry  sand, 
or  ashes,  and  a  fire  kindled  near  his  feet,  which 
was  kept  blazing  night  and  day.  By  his 
head  was  placed  a  cup  of  water,  or  some  gruel. 
His  friends  then  sat  down  by  his  side,  and 
waited  in  patience  until  he  recovered  or  died. 
Of  course,   they   had   their   quacks,  who  per- 


96  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

LHAP.  formed  wonderful  cures  througli  the  medium 
__^  of  a  perfect  faitli  and  the  entire  control  of  the 

1776.  patient's  imagination  —  thus  swindling  him 
away  from  under  the  power  of  disease.  Some 
writers  speak  of  the  sweat-house  as  the  never- 
failing  remedy  for  the  Indian,  whether  his  ail- 
ment were  little  or  great.  It  was  supposed  to 
add  very  largely  to  the  mortality  of  the  tribes ; 
but  their  ancestors,  "  the  authorities,"  believed 
in  it,  and  to  the  sweat-house  they  went,  whether 
afflicted  with  typhus  or  tooth-ache,  a  fit  of  indi- 
gestion or  the  small-pox. 

When  one  died,  he  was  either  buried  or 
burned,  according  as  the  custom  of  the  locality 
was.  Where  burning  was  the  fashion,  the 
corpse  was  laid  upon  a  pile  of  fagots',  in  the 
presence  of  the  friends,  and  the  bows  and  arrows, 
and  whatever  the  deceased  cherished  as  his 
property,  were  laid  beside  him.  When  the  pro- 
fessional burners  announced  that  all  was  con- 
sumed, the  friends  retired  outside  the  town  to 
do  their  mourning — the  doctor  accompanying 
them,  and  chanting  the  story  of  the  fatal  sickness, 
while  they  wept.  After  three  days  and  nights, 
they  returned  home  and  cut  their  hair  in  token 
of  their  loss.  If  the  departed  were  a  distant 
relative,  the  rule  required  that  it  be  cut  half  its 
old  length ;  if  it  were  a  parent,  wife,  or  child, 
the  head  must  be  shaved  close. 

They  thought  Death  was  a  being  who  took 


THEIU   IDEA    OF   DEATH.  97 

away  a  person's  breath,  and  after  that  there  chap. 
was  no  more  of  him  forever.  The  2)unishments 
that  they  feared  from  their  god  were  almost  1776. 
entirely  physical,  and  pertained  to  this  life. 
Still,  they  thought  that  the  heart  of  a  good 
chief  went  up,  after  death,  among  the  stars,  to 
enlighten  the  earth;  hence,  that  the  stars, 
comets,  and  meteors,  were  the  hearts  of  great 
Indians  departed.  Common  men  had  no  such 
honor  awaiting  them,  and  the  chiefs  only  at- 
tained it  by  virtue  of  the  fact  that,  after  death 
and  before  being  Ijurned,  men  who  practised  a 
modified  cannibalism  as  a  profession  came  and, 
with  much  ceremony,  consumed  a  small  portion 

of  their  flesh. 
7 


98  THE   HISTOKY    OF   CALlFOEiaA. 


CHAPTER  Vin. 

DETAILS  OF  THE  MISSION  SYSTEM. 

But  degraded  as  was  the  Indian,  the  whole 
theory  of  the  Spanish  cou(;[uest  required,  and 
173^  the  first  principle  of  the  missions  was,  that  he 
should  be  trained  in  the  simple  arts,  educated 
in  the  elements  of  letters  and  religion,  and  be 
made  a  citizen.  The  fathers  succeeded  in 
teaching  him  to  plough  and  plant,  to  sow  and 
reap,  to  raise  corn,  to  make  wine,  to  weave 
cloth,  to  dress  leather,  to  manufacture  soap, 
brick,  and  tiles  ;  l)ut  they  never  could  bring 
him  out  of  his  stolid  ignorance.  The  project 
of  manufacturing  him  into  a  valuable  subject 
of  Spain  was  an  utter  failure.  In  other  of  her 
Indian  possessions  this  had  been  done,  but  in 
California  it  could  not  be.  Yet,  throughout 
the  career  of  the  missions,  throughout  the  rule 
of  the. Church  in  California,  the  Indian  was 
always  treated  as  the  object  of  SQlicitude_^jid 
kindly  care.  If  he  was  a  slave  of  the  fathers, 
it  -vv^  that  he  might  become  a  subject  of  the 
crown. 


THE   MISSIONS.  99 

In  tlie  political  system  of  the  country,  his  chap. 
weakness  and  wants  were  scrupulously  consulted.  v_^_, 
The  missions  were  to  grow  into  towns ;  the  pre-    I78i 
sidios  were  for  their  defence;  and  the  pueblos 
were  established  only  when  it  was  found  that 
the  Indians  were  not  competent  to  sustain  the 
missions  and  the  pi-esidios  without   a    heavy 
draft  upon  the   Government  at   Mexico.     The 
first  grant  of  land  made  within  California  was    1775. 
to  a  Spanish  soldier,  in  consideration  of  the  fact 
that  he  had   manied  a  native  convert.     This 
care  for  the  Indians,  as  the  prospective  subjects 
and  sacred  occupants  of  the  soil,  was  never  in- 
termitted until  the  revolution  came  that  over- 
threw the  missions  themselves,  and  California 
was  distracted  with  the  civil  wars  that  followed 
its  attempt  at  independence. 

How  many  Indians  there  were  in  California 
when  the  missions  were  in  their  glory,  there  are 
no  means  of  knowing :  not  because  they  were  a 
floating  population,  for  those  near  the  coast,  at 
least,  seldom  drifted  far  beyond  the  horizon  of 
their  birthplace ;  but  they  were  not  reckoned 
worthy  of  being  counted  until  converted.  They 
were  more  valuable  than  beasts  only  as  they 
were  suscej)ti]  )le  of  conversion. 

The  missions  were  built  upon  one  general 
plan,  though  they  differed  in  the  expenditures 
upon  them.  In  the  centre  was  a  handsome 
church,  generally  built  of  adobe,  whose  tinsel 


100  THE    HISTORY    OF    CALIFOEXIA. 

oiiAP.  and  pictures,  marble  pillars  for  tlie  altar,  and 
ofold  and  silver  plate,  must  have  struck  the  In- 

1781.  dians  as  exceedingly  fine.  Close  by  the  chui'ch 
were  the  residences  of  the  clergy,  store-houses, 
granaries,  shops  for  blacksmiths,  weavers,  and 
soap-makers,  all  of  which  were  built  of  adobe 
and  roofed  with  tiles.  There  were  also  large 
gardens,  and  pens  for  cattle  and  horses.  Two 
or  three  hundred  yards  away  was  the  "  ranche- 
ria/'  sometimes  an  adobe  structure,  sometimes  a 
collection  of  wigwams  made  of  poles,  which 
had  this  advantage  over  the  adobe  house,  that 
when  they  became  altogether  filthy,  they  could 
be  burned  down,  and  new  ones  put  on  their  site. 
Close  by  the  raucheria  was  a  building  for  a 
garrison  of  half  a  dozen  soldiers,  with  their 
families.  About  the  mission  as  a  centre,  the 
best  land  of  the  vicinity,  generally  a  tract  of 
some  fifteen  miles  squai'e,  was  set  apart  to  it  for 
a  farm,  where  the  thousands  of  sheep  and  cattle 
grazed  and  pastm^ed.  But  this  was  not  all  that 
the  missions  claimed.  Their  boundaries  touched 
each  other.  From  the  sea-coast  to  the  moun- 
tains, from  San  Diego  to  San  Francisco,  all, 
with  a  few  exceptions  to  be  hereafter  named, 
was  claimed  by  the  priests  as  mission  property, 
without  reference  to  the  number  of  the  estab- 
lishments. 

Over  each  mission  was  a  presiding   fathei', 
who  had  a  control  of  its  affeirs  that  was  almost 


THE   mSSIONS    AND    PRESIDIOS.  101 

absolute,  being  responsible  only  to  tlie  presi-  chap. 
dent  of  the  missions  and  the  college  to  which      ^^  ■ 
he  belonged.     The  ground  was  tilled,  the  cattle    1781. 
killed,  the  cloth  woven,  the  vintage  nourished 
or  neg:lected,  as   the   father   dictated.      If  he 
we^;e  blessed  with  worldly  wisdom,  his  mission 
flourished,  its  Indians  were  fat  and  contented, 
and  its  treasury  full.     If  he  had  no  mind  for 
such  matters,  unless  indeed  his  assistant  clergy 
were   wiser   than    he,  spiritual    and   temporal 
affairs  alike  went  amiss,  the  Indians  suffered 
from  nakedness  and  hunger,  and  fumed   with 
discontent ;  converts  were  not  multiplied ;  the 
buildings  went  to  decay  ;  the  mission  got  a  bad 
name. 

To  give  greater  protection  to  the  missions, 
wdiich  were  mostly  inland,  four  presidios,  or 
military  establishments,  were  planted  at  as 
many  sea-ports — San  Diego  in  1769,  Monterey 
in  1770,  Sin  Francisco  in  1776,  and  Santa  Bar- 
bara in  1780.  The  presidio  was  an  enclosure  of 
from  two  to  three  hundred  yards  square,  sur- 
rounded by  an  adobe  wall  of  about  twelve  feet 
in  height.  In  this  square  were  a  chapel,  store- 
houses, residences  for  the  officers,  and  barracks 
for  the  soldiers.  Upon  the  walls  were  mount- 
ed sundry  small  cannon.  Near  the  anchoring- 
ground  and  aside  from  the  presidio  was  gene- 
rally a  fort  of  rude  construction,  also  mounted 
with   cannon.     The   presidio   was,   in   theoiy, 


102  THE  HISTOEY   OF   CALrFORTTIA. 

cnAP.  manned  by  seventy  soldiers,  but  that  maximum 
was  seldom  reached ;  most  of  the  numl^er  rated 

1781.  as  cavalry,  and  a  small  portion  as  artillery. 
Tlieir  commander  had  military  jurisdiction  over 
a  certain  number  of  missions  and  the  pueblos 
within  his  limits.  Thus  the  Presidio  of  San 
Francisco,  as  late  as  1835,  had  within  its  juris- 
diction the  town  of  San  Joso  and  the  six  mis- 
sions about  the  bay.  The  commandant  stood 
in  the  j^lace  of  the  viceroy  throughout  his  dis- 
trict. He  must  assist  the  missionaries  and 
protect  their  charge,  but  in  no  way  interfere 
with  them. 

One  of  the  objects  of  Father  Junipero  in 

j^^g  visiting  Mexico  was  to  bring  to  an  issue  a  dis- 
pute concerning  the  mutual  rights  and  relations 
of  tlie  military  and  the  ecclesiastics.  The  law 
of  the  latter  toward  the  Indians  was  kindness ; 
the  former  looked  down  on  the  red  men  with 
scorn,  and  abused  them  accordingly.  They 
made  the  Indian  men  work,  the  squaws  carry 
burdens,  the  children  Avait  upon  them,  and 
punished  them  all  promptl}^  if  they  tried  to 
avoid  work.  The  priests  had  complained  to 
the  viceroy  of  the  behavior  of  the  soldiers ; 
the  military  had  complained  to  him  that  the 
priests  were  meddlesome,  and  in  the  habit 
of  transcending  their  powers  by  dictating  to 
their  equals.  The  viceroy  took  the  priests' 
part,  invoked  the  military  to  preserve  harmony. 


PRIESTLY  AND  MILITAEY  AUTHORITIES.  103 

to  help  the  fathers  cheerfully,  ti  give  them  chap. 
aid,  escorts,  and  supplies,  and  to  treat  the  In-  _^_ 
dians  so  kindly  tliat  their  example  would  com-  1773. 
mend  their  religion.  The  most  explicit  advices 
failing  to  j^roduce  the  desired  harmony,  Juni- 
pero  went  personally  to  Mexico,  and,  from  the 
Convent  of  San  Fernando,  issued  the  gravest 
charges  against  the  soldiers,  and  Don  Pedro 
Pages,  their  chief  commanding  officer.  Then 
Pages  was  peremptorily  ordered  by  the  viceroy 
to  remove  any  soldier  at  tlie  demand  of  a  mis- 
sionary, and  to  leave  the  entire  management 
of  the  Indians  to  the  priests.  After  that, 
though  there  were  occasional  jealousies,  the 
positions  of  the  two  powers  were  pretty  well 
defined,  and  there  was  not  nmch  conflict  be- 
tween them. 

The  commander  of  a  presidio  had  authority 
to  grant  building-lots  to  the  soldiers  and  other 
residents  within  the  space  of  four  square  leagues 
of  head-quarters,  where  it  could  be  done  with- 
out encroaching  upon  the  mission.  It  is  not 
certain  that  this  right  was  ever  exercised  by 
the  captain  of  the  San  Prancisco  presidio,  but 
probably  it  was  at  San  Diego,  Santa  Barbara, 
and  Monterey. 

There  were  a  few  farms  set  apart  for  the  use 
of  the  presidio  soldiers,  but  the  military  did 
not  take  well  to  farming;  and,  excepting  for 
grazing  purpo^^es,  this  land  was  very  little  used. 


104  THE   IIISTOEY    OF    CALIFOENIA. 

CFiAP.  The  soldiers  were  an  undisciplined,  riotous  set 
,_^  of  fellows,  mostly  mutineers  or  deserters  from 
1781.  tlie  Mexican  army,  or  felons  transported  to  the 
wilderness  because  the  prisons  of  Mexico  were 
crowded.  Still,  miserably  mounted  and  shock- 
ingly equipped  as  they  were,  they  answered 
every  purpose  that  was  required  of  them.  The 
timid  Indians  only  needed  the  shadow  of  an 
army  to  keep  them  within  the  bounds  of  pro- 
priety. When  the  converted  Indians  were  dis- 
posed to  relapse  into  heathenism,  and  ran 
away,  the  soldiers  went  out  on  a  grand  hunt 
and  brought  them  in  again,  and  with  them  all 
the  wild  natives  that  they  could  corral.  Once, 
at  San  Diego,  the  Indians  rose,  murdered  sev- 
eral persons,  and  burned  the  mission-houses. 
The  soldiers,  with  a  few  "  terrible  examples," 
soon  restored  tranquillity,  and  this  was  the  only 
occasion  for  any  warlike  demonstration  to  quiet 
insurrection  during  the  early  history  of  the 
settlements. 

At  each  presidio  a  certain  number  of  pack- 
mules  were  kept  for  the  government  service, 
and  four  horses  stood  saddled  by  day  and  eight 
by  night,  ready  to  carry  dispatches  in  any 
direction. 

To  relieve  the  Government  of  Mexico  of  the 
heavy  burden  of  supplying  the  presidios  with 
recruits  and  rations,  there  were  established,  in 
Father  Junipero's  day,  the  pueblos  of  San  Jose 


THE   PUEBLOS.  105 

In  the  nortla,  and  of  Los  Angeles  in  the  south,  chap. 
Later,  in  1795,  the  Marquis  of  Branciforte  or- 
dered a  commission  to  select  a  pueblo  site  in  iV95. 
the  vicinity  of  San  Francisco.  The  commis- 
sioners reported  that  San  Francisco  was  prob- 
ably the  worst  place  in  all  California  for  the 
purpose,  and  so  the  "  Villa  of  Branciforte"  was 
established  near  the  Santa  Cruz  Mission.  It 
never  grew  to  any  consecjuence.  Portions  of 
its  adobe  ruins  are  still  pointed  out  to  the 
visitor  to  that  pleasant  sea-side  retreat. 

These  pueblos  were  reckoned  of  little  account 
— a  necessary  evil,  whose  growth  l)eyond  a  cer- 
tain point  was  to  be  discouraged.  Each  pueblo 
had  its  common  lands,  where  the  cattle  were 
pastured,  and  whence  the  fuel  was  obtained. 
Each  settler  was  entitled  to  an  inalienable 
homestead  of  two  hundred  varas  square,  a  cer- 
tain number  of  cattle,  horses,  and  poultry,  a 
stipulated  quantity  of  agricultural  implements, 
a  salary  at  the  outset,  and,  for  five  years,  ex- 
emption from  all  taxes.  In  return,  he  engaged 
to  sell  all  the  products  of  his  lot,  beyond  what 
his  family  required,  to  the  presidios,  at  a  fixed 
price ;  to  keep  a  horse,  saddle,  carl)ine,  and  lance, 
and  hold  his  own  person  in  readines=5  for  the 
king's  service,  on  demand.  After  five  years' 
occupation,  he  must  pay  an  annual  rent  of  a 
bushel  and  a  quarter  of  corn. 

For  the  first  two  years  after  the  establish- 


106  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  ment  of  a  pueblo,  it  had  an  alcalde  or  judge, 
,_^_,  and  other  town  officers  of  the  governor's  ap- 
1761)-  poiutment.  After  that,  the  officers  were  elected 
by  the  jjeople,  subject  to  the  governor's  ap- 
proval. The  settlers  were  mostly  soldiers 
whose  term  of  service  had  expired.  These  free 
towns,  which  were  originally  intended  to  be 
subservient  to  the  presidios,  as  the  presidios  in 
turn  were  but  the  servants  of  the  missions, 
were  naturally  eyed  ^vith  jealousy  by  the  mis- 
sions ;  especially,  as  to  them  were  attracted  all 
straggling  foreigners,  and  the  trappers  and 
hunters  who  wearied  of  their  adventurous  life, 
and  were  disposed  to  settle,  and  end  their  days 
in  a  semi-civilized  fashion.  Very  naturally, 
there  were  occasional  collisions  between  the 
ecclesiastic  and  the  militar}^  authorities ;  and 
there  was  a  law-suit  of  tedious  length,  brought 
by  the  college  at  Mexico  to  which  the  priests 
belonged,  before  the  viceroy,  because  the  pue- 
blo of  San  Jose  was  established  nearer  the 
mission  of  Santa  Clara  than  Fatlier  Junipero 
thought  to  be  wholesome  for  his  Indians. 

But  here  we  are  verging  upon  ground  that 
the  lawyers  of  California,  and  especially  of  San 
Francisco,  have  disputed  about  too  much  for 
any  one  not  of  the  profession  to  travel  over  it 
witliout  great  risks.  Early  in  the  career  of  San 
Francisco,  it  became  a  question  of  importance, 
whether  or  not  it  was  ever  a  pueblo.      The 


COLO:>'IAL    HISTOEY   IX   THE    COUETS.  107 

Supreme  Court  of  the  State  decided  that  it  was  chap. 
one ;  and  the  Federal  Court  of  the  district  has  _,^_ 
pronounced  a  like  decision.  Long  as  the  liti-  1709- 
gation  lasted,  it  was  not  without  some  redeem- 
ing results.  The  legal  investigation  of  the  pue- 
blo question,  on  which  hangs  the  title  of  the  city 
as  the  successor  of  the  alleged  pueblo  to  the 
greater  part  of  the  lands  in  its  suburbs,  threw 
a  deal  of  light  upon  the  system  under  which 
California  was  settled,  developed  mau}^  curious 
historical  facts  that  were  buried  in  the  Spanish 
documents  of  the  State  archives,  and  explained 
other  thino;s,  of  which  the  full  records  were  lost 
in  the  bustle  of  the  American  occupation. 
Dwinelle's  "  Colonial  History  of  San  Francisco," 
published  in  1863,  was  the  argument  of  John 
W.  Dwindle,  in  the  United  States  District 
Court,  for  the  city's  pueblo  claim  for  four 
square  leagues  of  land. 

There  are  those,  and  Mr.  Dwindle  appears 
to  be  among  them,  who  h;)ld  that  the  Spanish 
and  jMexican  system  for  settling  California  con- 
templated a  threefold  occupation  of  the  land  : 
by  the  religious  pioneers,  building  up  missions 
and  drawing  the  natives  around  them ;  by  the 
military,  making  the  influence  of  the  presidios 
meet  each  other  and  cover  the  whole  country ; 
and  by  civilians,  congregated  in  pueblos.  On 
this  theory,  all  tbree  were  alike,  if  not  equally, 
cherished  by  the  Government,  as  nuclei  of  popu- 


108  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  lation  and  srrowth  into  a  State.     If  that  were 

VIH 

,_^_,  really  the  theory  of  those  who  began  the  settle- 
17G9-  ment  of  California,  the  failure  of  the  Indian  to 
grow  into  a  citizen  caused  the  mission  element 
so  early  to  outgrow  the  others  in  importance 
and  influence  at  Mexico,  that  very  soon  the 
pueblo  was  deemed  an  intruder,  and  the  pre- 
sidio only  tolerated  as  the  prop  and  defender 
of  the  missions. 

Still,  it  is  clear  that  the  mission  was  never 
intended  to  be  a  permanent  institution  under 
priestly  control.  Just  as  soon  as  the  converted 
Indians  were  educated  up  to  the  capacity  for 
self-government,  the  missions  were  to  be  con- 
verted into  pueblos.  The  "  religious  "  priests — 
that  is,  priests  who  had  taken  the  three  vows 
of  a  "  regular  order  " — vows  of  chastity,  obe- 
dience, and  poverty,  and  were  consequently  held 
ill  law  as  "  civilly  dead  " — were  to  be  succeeded 
by  the  "  secular  clergy,"  and  the  mission  church- 
es would  become  parish  churches; — in  short, 
the  missions  were  to  be  secularized.  It  had 
been  presumed,  at  first,  that  ten  years  would 
suffice  to  carry  a  mission  up  to  the  point  where 
it  could  be  secularized ;  Imt  the  priests  loved 
the  missions  too  well,  and  their  Indian  converts 
were  too  stupid  for  that.  A  few  missions,  forced 
by  the  impatience  of  the  Government,  struggled 
into  the  pueblo  state,  but  soon  ^vent  to  decay. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  original  pueblos  flour- 


SEVERAL    KIISTDS    OF    PtJEBLOS.  100 

ished  finely,  and  several  presidios  grew  so  rapid-  chap. 
ly  in  spite  of  ecclesiastical  objections,  that  they  _^__, 
assumed  the  rights  and  privileges  of  pueblos.        1769- 

Much  confusion  has  orio-inated  in  the  some- 
times  loose,  sometimes  precise  meaning  of  that 
word  puehlo.  It  seems  to  have  worn  all  the 
vagueness  of  our  word  town,  and  like  it  to  have 
had  also  a  specific  meaning.  The  same  term 
was  applied  to  a  settlement  of  straggling  In- 
dian huts,  and  to  an  incorporation  v/ith  powers 
precisely  defined.  Moreover,  a  pueblo  might 
be  aristocratically  called  a  villa,  like  Branci- 
fbrte,  or  a  ciudad^  like  Los  Angeles ;  l^ut  under 
whatever  name,  it  still  was  a  pueblo,  with  its 
privileges  determined  exclusively  by  the  num- 
bers of  its  "  reasoning  "  population. 

California,  when  first  settled,  was  a  depart- 
ment of  the  kingdom  of  Spain,  and  to  the  viceroy 
at  Mexico  its  governor  was  responsible.  In  1776, 
it  became  one  of  the  "  Internal  Provinces,"  which 
were  ruled  by  a  commandante-general.  When, 
still  later,  the  Internal  Provinces  were  divided 
into  Eastern  and  Western  Provinces,  it  formed 
a  part  of  the  Western,  and  then  its  capital  was 
either  at  Arispe  or  Chihuahua.  Still  later  a  few 
years,  the  old  order  was  restored,  and  the  gov- 
ernor of  California,  residing  at  Monterey  as  the 
capital,  was  directly  responsible  to  the  viceroy. 

Events  travelled  slowly  in  those  times,  and 
it  took  many  years  to  furnish  a  ch^^pbr  of  his- 


110  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

•  II AP.  tory.  Each  subordinate  officer  was  a  despot, 
until  liis  suj^erior's  order  came.     Loyalty  was  in- 

1709-  stinctive,  and  the  v^ery  distance  of  the  supreme  au- 
■  thority  added  dignity  and  weight  to  his  behests. 
The  King  of  Spain  forwarded  his  order  to 
the  viceroy,  who  sent  a  copy  to  each  Spanish 
dependency ;  so  that  a  command,  intended  for 
Peru,  came  through  to  California,  and  was  filed 
here  as  well  as  there.  Among  these  old  kingly 
communications  preserved  in  our  State  archives, 
Randolph  quotes  one  for  the  furnishing  of  the 
royal  park  with  some  of  the  deer  that  abound- 
ed, as  was  said  in  the  neighborhood  of  San 
Francisco ;  and  another,  that  would  have  l)een 
more  useful  in  Nicaragua  than  here,  announc- 
ing that  a  cei'taiif  arelibishop  had  happily  dis- 
covered that  when  the  jiggers  have  burrowed 
into  the  human  flesh,  it  is  sure  death  to  the  in- 
sect to  anoint  the  part  affected  with  cold  olive- 
oil  !  So,  in  every  corner  of  Spanish  America 
this  royal  remedy  against  jiggers  was  heralded. 
To  reach  here,  it  had  travelled  a  long  and 
crooked  circuit,  from  the  king  to  the  viceroy, 
to  the  comman<lante-general,  to  the  governor, 
to  the  captain  of  the  presidio,  to  the  fathers. 
who  read  it  aloud  to  the  shivering,  dusky 
crowd,  who  wondered  doubtless  what  sort  of 
creature  this  jigger  was,  that  henceforth,  in  all 
the  dominions  of  Spain,  was  to  have  no  chance 
for  his  li^ 


A   CALM   HALF   CENTUEY.  HI 


1830. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

A    CALM  HALF  CENTURY. 

The  Indians  accepted  tlieir  new  style  of  life  chap. 
witli  apparent  cheerfulness.  Its  restraints  were  w-,,— ^ 
probably  balanced  in  their  reckoning  by  the  J775- 
freedom  from  any  peril  of  hunger  or  cold. 
Though  exceedingly  laz}',  they  got  through 
their  tasks  with  ease,  and  they  were  apt  enough 
to  understand  readily  the  simple  arts  they  were 
required  to  learn.  They  came  together  to  the 
missions  in  the  morning,  at  the  sound  of  a  l^ell. 
Seven  hours  a  day  they  gave  to  work,  and  two 
to  prayer.  For  their  misdemeanors  they  were 
whipped — the  females  in  private,  the  males  in 
public,  for  the  edification  of  both  sexes.  Boiled 
corn  was  served  to  them,  morning,  noon,  and 
night.  On  saints'  days  and  great  occasions 
they  had  beef,  which  some  of  them  preferred 
unspoiled  by  cookery.  So  soon  as  an  Indian 
was  baptized,  he  was  regarded  as  a  member  of 
the  community,  and  entitled  to  feed  at  its  ex- 
pense. He  was  no  longer  at  liberty  to  return 
to  the  gentile  Indian  village,  or  to  his  heathen 


1830 


112  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

family.  He  had  nothing  that  he  could  call  his 
own.  He  was  a  slave,  under  a  mastership  that 
1775-  was  mild  enough,  so  long  as  he  did  his  day's 
work  complacently,  and  said  his  prayers  Avith 
becoming  gravity. 

Without  disturbance,  without  bloodshed, 
with  scarcely  a  ripple  on  the  calm  surface  of 
their  simple  society,  these  occupants  of  a  wild 
and  unknown  portion  of  the  continent  drifted 
through  two  generations.  While  America,  on 
her  eastern  border,  w^as  convulsed  with  a  war 
that  was  rending^  from  Eno-land  her  thh*teen 
colonies,  nothing  disturbed  the  quiet  of  this 
priest-ruled  region.  While  Spain  was  passing 
through  the  tire,  this,  her  distant  province,  was 
literally  occupying  a  Pacific  slope.  The  old 
cannons  on  the  presidio  walls  and  in  the  forts 
grew  rusty  for  lack  of  use,  or  were  buried  in 
the  rank  growth  of  the  sod.  The  soldiers  for- 
got the  art  of  war,  and  craved  the  excitement 
of  the  cattle-ranches.  The  captains  of  the  pre- 
sidios were  sending  to  the  governors  of  the 
province  the  copy-books  of  the  children  in 
their  schools.  Nearly  sixty  years  this  great  calm 
lasted.  The  Indians  grew  somewhat  skilful  in 
their  trades.  The  fathers  waxed  fiit  and  patri- 
archal. To  start  with,  they  had  little  of  the  con- 
suming zeal  and  unquenchable  thirst  for  explo- 
rations that  characterized  tlie  Jesuits,  and,  r.s 
their  possessions  increased,  that  little  vanished. 


POPULATION    AT   THE    MISSIONS.  113 

They  were  contented  with  the  valley  in  which  chap. 
they  lived.  Mountains,  rising  abruptly  from 
the  plain,  bounded  their  horizon ;  they  were  not 
curious  to  widen  it  or  discover  what  lay  beyond. 
So  the  land  that  was  unknown  in  1776,  was 
scarcely  known  in  1830.  It  was  only  a  fringe, 
a  few  miles  deep  from  the  sea-coast,  that  was 
explored,  from  San  Francisco  Bay  to  San  Diego. 
They  knew  there  were  such  valleys  as  the  San 
Joaquin  and  Sacramento,  but  they  took  uo 
steps  to  possess  them. 

In  1786,  when  the  missions  were  ten  in  num- 
bei",  it  was  estimated  that  there  were  five 
thousand  one  hundred  and  forty-three  domes- 
ticated Indians  in  California.  In  1790,  when 
there  were  eleven  missions,  the  population  was 
set  down  at  seven  thousand  seven  hundred  and 
forty-eight ;  and  in  1801,  at  thirteen  thousand 
six  hundred  and  sixty-eight.  Humboldt  esti 
mated  the  population  at  the  close  of  1802,  of 
the  mling  classes,  the  gente  de  razon,  or  rational 
creatures  of  the  land,  amono^  whom  were  em- 
braced  all  the  whites,  mestizoes,  and  mulattoeg 
in  the  pueblos,  presidios,  and  missions,  at  one 
thousand  three  hundred ;  and  the  converted 
Indians  of  the  eio'hteen  missions  at  fifteen 
thousand  five  hundred  and  sixty-two,  of  which 
number  seven  thousand  nine  hundred  and  forty- 
five  were  females. 

The  list  of  missions,  in   the  order  of  their 


114  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALEFOENIA. 

ciTAP.  population  in  1802,  would  stand  as  follows: 
San  Diego,  population  about  one  thousand  five 

1802.  hundred  and  sixty  ;  Santa  Clara,  one  thousand 
three  hundred ;  San  Antonio  de  Padua  and 
San  Gabriel,  each  one  thousand  and  fifty ; 
Santa  Barbara,  La  Purisima  Concepcion,  and 
San  Juan  Capistrano,  each  one  thousand ; 
San  Juan  Bautista,  nine  hundred  and  sixty ; 
San  Buenaventura,  nine  hundred  and  fifty; 
San  Francisco,  eight  hundred  and  twenty; 
San  Luis  Obispo  and  San  Carlos  de  Monterey, 
each  seven  hundred  ;  San  Jose,  six  hundred  and 
thirty ;  San  Miguel,  San  Fernandino,  and  San 
Luis  Rey,  each  six  hundred  ;  Soledad,  five  hun- 
dred and  seventy ;  Santa  Cruz,  four  hundred 
and  forty. 

The  seeds  and  grains  so  carefully  provided 
by  Galvez,  flourished  beyond  expectation.  The 
cattle  thrived  and  multiplied  like  Jacob's  flocks 
in  Padan-aram.  There  were  plenty  of  sheep 
and  horses  and  cattle  in  the  land,  an  abund- 
ance of  corn,  wheat,  beans,  and  j)eas,  in  the 
fields,  and  of  fruit  in  the  orchards.  At  the 
south  they  had  grapes  in  profusion,  and  olives 
of  excellent  quality. 

Commerce,  scenting  great  bargains  from  afar, 
sent  around  the  Horn,  from  Boston  and  New 
York,  vessels  to  buy  up. the  surplus  hides  and 
tallow.  As  the  settlers  had  no  use  for  gold  or 
silver,  the   traders  brought  in  payment  such 


COMMERCE   UNVEILS   THE   COAST.  115 

goods  as  were  sure  to  captivate  the  whites,  and  chap. 
such  stout  stuffs  as  were  desirable  for  Indian  _^1^ 
costume.     The  hides  were  rated  so  low,  and  the    i775- 

1830 

goods  they  brought  sold  at  so  liigh  a  figure,  that, 
after  the  balance  on  the  first  venture  was  struck, 
the  trade  was  permanently  established. 

The  Yankee  visitors  took  home  tales  of  true 
Arcadian  landscapes;  of  a  climate  beyond 
criticism,  where  spring  was  perennial,  and 
flowers  bloomed  in  the  open  fields  every  month 
in  the  year ;  of  a  fat  land,  where  people  lived 
to  an  extreme  old  age,  and  were  fi'ee,  to  the 
verge  of  their  departure,  from  the  infirmities  of 
declining  life;  of  a  country  civilized,  yet  of 
the  simplest  manners,  and  whore  a  fortune  could 
be  made  in  a  year  or  two,  if  one  would  consent 
to  take  it  in  the  shape  of  lands  or  hides.  These 
stories  generall}^  passed  for  travellers'  tales,  but 
many  restless  pioneers  at  the  East  heard  them, 
who,  as  they  pushed  westward  before  the  ad- 
vancing wave  of  Western  settlement,  climbed 
the  Kocky  and  the  Snowy  Mountains,  and 
dropped  quietly  into  these  valleys  before  they 
found  the  country  that  matched  their  ideal; 
and  so,  unobserved,  there  was  quite  a  sprink- 
ling of  American  settlers  through  the  country 
l:)efore  this  Ions;  calm  was  disturbed. 

But,  because  there  was  no  political  storm,  it 
must  not  be  supposed  that  the  Californians  had 
not  their  share  of  grievances.     They  lived  in 


116  THE    HISTORY    OF    CALIFORlSriA. 

OHAP.  DO  little  fear  of  earthquakes,  perhaps  as  mncli 

,^___,  because  the  land  has  such  an  unfinished  aspect 

1775-  in  many  parts,  as  from  any  experience  of  their 

*    effects.     The   Indians   said   there   had  always 

been    more    or  less   of  them   throughout   the 

country,  and  they  early  felt  tremors  enough  to 

make  them  appreciate  the  low,  modest  Mexican 

style  of  building. 

The  adobe  houses  at  San  Juan  Bautista  were 
severely  injured  by  an  earthquake  which  oc- 
curred on  the  18th  of  October,  1800;  and  the 
captain  of  the  San  Francisco  presidio  reported 
to  the  governor  that  several  occurred  early  in 
July,  1808,  which  did  no  greater  damage  simply 
for  want  of  more  material  to  destroy.  Within 
the  four  weeks  preceding  the  iTth,  twenty-one 
shocks  had  been  felt,  that  cracked  all  the  walls 
of  the  captain's  house,  and  threatened  the 
entire  ruin  of  the  barracks  of  the  fort.  On  one 
Sunday  of  September,  1812,  the  church  of  the 
Mission  San  Juan  Capistrano  was  destroyed  by 
an  earthquake,  and  thirty  persons  killed ;  on 
the  same  day  the  church  at  Santa  Inez  was 
thrown  down.  In  1818,  an  earthquake  levelled 
the  mission  church  at  Santa  Clara. 

But,  more  than  earthquakes,  from  first  to  last, 
they  feared  foreigners.  On  the  23d  of  October, 
1 776,  the  viceroy  wrote  to  the  governor  to  be 
on  the  watch  for  Captain  Cook,  and  not  permit 
him  to  enter  the  ports  of  California.     In  form  a- 


JEALOUSY    OF   STEANGEES.  117 

tion  had  reached  the  King  of  Spain  that  Cook  chap. 
had  sailed,  with  two  armed  vessels,  from 
London,  on  a  voyage  of  discovery  to  the  177G. 
Southern  Ocean  and  the  northern  coast  of  Cali- 
fornia. But  the  world-renowned  circumnavi- 
gator never  sought  an  entrance  into  the  king's 
inhospitable  harbors. 

Seventeen  years  later,  Spain  felt  better  to-  1793. 
ward  the  land  that  had  the  effrontery  to  give 
birth  to  Francis  Drake,  and  orders  were  received 
here  to  treat  Vancouver  well,  if  he  should  ar- 
rive. The  noise  of  the  French  Revolution, 
and  the  high  doings  of  "  that  Lucifer,"  Bona- 
parte, had  reached  this  coast,  and  they  made  the 
English  seem  friendly,  by  comparison  with  any 
thing  French.  So,  when  Admiral  Vancouver 
turned  into  Monterey,  in  1793,  he  was  received 
with  distinguished  consideration. 

In  1790,  Governor  Fages  commanded  the  i79o. 
captain  of  the  presidio  at  San  Francisco,  that 
whenever  the  ship  Oolumhia,  "said  to  belong  to 
General  Washington,  of  the  American  States," 
which  sailed  from  Boston,  1787,  "bound  on  a 
voyage  of  discovery  to  the  Russian  establish- 
ments on  the  northern  coasts  of  this  peninsula" 
(the  good  governor  thought  California  a  penin- 
sula yet,  all  the  way  up  to  those  mysterious 
Straits  of  Anian),  should  appear,  she  was  to  be 
"examined  with  caution  and  delicacy."  The 
Colwmhia  was  on  a  nobler  ei'rand  than  that  of 


118  THE    HISTORY    OF    CALIFOENIA. 

CHAP,  peering  into  ports  where  slie  would  be  cau- 
tiously   examined  ;  she    struck  the    coast  far- 

1890.  ther  north,  and,  by  the  discovery  of  the  great 
Western  stream,  gave  her  own  name  to  the 
Columbia  River. 

1803.  On  the  1st  of  August,  1803,  "  at  the  hour  of 
evening  prayers,"  two  American  vessels,  the 
Alextinder,  Captain  John  Brown,  and  the  Asei\ 
Captain  Thomas  Raben,  entered  the  harbor  of 
San  Francisco,  dropped  anchor,  and  sent  ashore 
for  permission  to  take  in  wood  and  water.  The 
captain  of  the  presidio,  finding  that  Captain 
Brown  was  the  same  man  who  was  there  five 
months  before,  refused  him  permission  to  remain. 
Next  morning  the  Yankee  captain  sent  in  a  dole- 
ful account  of  the  hard  times  he  had  experienced 
on  the  northwest  coast,  and  of  his  severe  en- 
counters with  the  Indians  in  the  Straits  of  Chat- 
ham. At  San  Juan  de  Fuca  he  heard  that  the 
ship  Boston  had  been  captured  by  the  Indians, 
and  burned,  and  all  but  two  of  the  crew  butch- 
ered. The  presumption  is  that  this  tale,  \vheth- 
er  entirely  true  or  not,  so  moved  the  captain 
of  the  presidio,  that  the  strangers  were  permit- 
ted to  supply  themselves  with  wood  and  water. 
The   Russians   made  their   first   appearance 

1807.  about  1807.  The  czai*'s  ambassador  to  Japan, 
Von  Resanoif,  after  looking  at  the  establish- 
ments of  the  •  Russian  Fur  Company,  both  on 
the  Asiatic  and  American  coasts,  and  failing  in 


EUSSIAN   SETTLEMENTS.  119 

an  attempt  to  enter  tlie  Columbia  River,  came  chap. 
on  to  San  Francisco.  His  immediate  object  v_^J_, 
was  to  obtain  supplies  for  Sitka ;  but  once  i807. 
here,  he  attempted  to  lay  the  foundations  of  a 
regular  intercourse  between  the  Russian  and 
California  settlements.  To  cement  more  surely 
the  national  alliance,  he  proposed  to  take  as  his 
wife  the  commandante's  daughter.  The  daugh- 
ter and  the  father  were  nothing  loth,  so  the 
ambassador  hastened  back  to  obtain  from  the 
Russian  and  the  Spanish  courts  the  requisite 
authority.  On  his  road  through  Siberia,  he  fell 
from  bis  horse,  and  died  from  the  effects  of  the 
fall.  The  disappointed  lady  assumed  the  habit, 
if  not  the  formal  vows,  of  a  nun,  and  de- 
voted her  life  to  the  consolation  of  the  sick  and 
the  education  of  the  young,  and  we  hear  no 
more  of  the  proposed  commercial  compact.  But 
in  1812  one  hundred  Russians,  and  in  their  1812. 
company  one  hundred  Kodiak  Indians,  came 
dawn  from  the  north,  and  squatted  on  a  narrow 
strip  of  land  in  what  is  now  Sonoma  County, 
making  Bodega  their  port.  Whether  they  ever 
had  permission  from  the  Spaniards,  or  whether 
indeed  they  asked  it,  is  not  sure ;  but  this  is, 
that  thev  were  never  res-arded  otherwise  than 
as  intruders  of  the  most  unwelcome  sort. 
They  maintained  themselves  by  virtue  of  their 
forts  and  many  soldiers,  and  when  at  their  best 
estate,  in  1841,  numbered  eio:ht  hundred  Rus-    isa. 


120  THE   HISTOET    OF    CALIFOKNIA. 

CHAP,  sians,  aud  a  great  company  of  Indiaa  stlpendi- 
J5^  aries.  They  raised  some  grain,  kept  some  cat- 
1841.  tie,  hunted  on  all  the  coasts,  creeks,  and  inlets, 
for  seals,  beavers,  and  otters,  and  scoured  the 
country  for  inland  peltry.  To  circumscribe 
their  influence,  the  missions  were  founded  at 
San  Kafael  and  Sonoma. 

But,  quite  regardless  of  tlieir  jealous,  priestly 
observers,  they  held  in  undisturbed  possession 
their  strip  of  exclusive  territory,  trapped  wher- 
ever they  found  game,  and  in  their  Greek 
church,  among  the  solemn  pines  of  Fort  Ross, 
worshipped  the  Christian's  God,  after  a  fashion 
scarcely  less  offensive  to  the  zealous  papists 
than  were  the  dances  of  the  natives  before  the 
stufled  coyote-skins  in  the  savage  temples. 
Without  any  premonitions,  in  1841,  they  sold 
all  their  property  to  Captain  John  A.  Sutter,  a 
Swiss,  who  was  to  be  notable  in  the  next 
twenty  years'  history  of  the  country ;  and  then, 
in  1842,  after  thirty  years'  quiet  occupation, 
they  retired. 


CALIFORNIA    UPTDER   MEXICAN    RULE.  121 


CHAPTER  X. 

CALIFORNIA    UNDER  MEXICAN.  RULE. 

In  1822,  Mexico  threw  off  tlie  yoke  of  Spain,  chap. 
and  established  a  separate  empire.  When  the  ,___, 
news  reached  California,  the  governor  (Pablo  1822. 
Vicente  de  Sola),  the  generals  at  the  four 
presidios,  two  militia  captains,  and  oue  artil- 
lery lieutenant,  the  prelate  of  the  missions,  and 
the  proxy  of  the  father  president,  met  accord- 
ing to  previous  notice  at  Monterey,  and  heard 
the  documents  read  which  announced  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  Mexican  empire.  Then,  with- 
out a  dissenting  voice,  they  resolved  that  hence- 
forth California  was  independent  of  any  foreign 
state,  and  would  render  obedience  to  Mexico 
alone.  The  oaths  were  changed  and  taken  ac- 
cordingly, and  without  a  struggle  the  severance 
of  California  from  Spain  was  complete. 

Father  Boscana  tells  an  anecdote  illustrative 
of  how  the  Indians  about  San  Diesro  were  af- 
fected  by  the  news  that  the  viceroy  had  been 
deposed,  and  Yturbide  proclaimed  emperor  at 
Mexico.  They  had  a  grand  feast  in  the  village, 
to  ^vhich   all   the   neis-hborhood  was   invited. 


122  THE    HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP.  The  ceremonies  were  commenced   by  burning 

, ^^^  tbe   chief  alive.     Then   they  elected    another, 

1822.  and  after  eight  days  of  revelry  they  dispersed. 
When  the  missionaries  heard  of  it,  they  admin- 
istered a  sharp  rebuke  to  those  of  their  con- 
verts who  shared  in  the  entertainment.  But 
the  Indians  replied :  "  Have  you  not  done  the 
same  in  Mexico  ?  You  say  your  king  was  not 
good,  and  you  killed  him.  Well,  our  captain 
was  not  good,  aiid  we  bui^ned  him :  if  the  new 
one  should  be  bad,  we  will  burn  him  too." 
1767-  Governors  are  governors  the  world  over,  and 
^^^--  are  entitled  to  honorable  mention  for  their 
office'  sake.  So  it  is  a  duty  to  name  the  gov- 
ernors of  California  under  the  Spanish  rule, 
though  they  governed  but  a  small  fraction  of 
the  people,  and,  with  some  exceptions,  really 
had  less  hand  in  shaping  the  course  of  events 
within  the  province  than  any  one  of  the  fa- 
thers. They  were  the  despotic  masters  of  the 
military,  except  as  at  long  intervals  there  came 
up  orders  from  their  superiors  at  Arispe,  Chi- 
huahua, Mexico,  or  Madrid.  But  the  military 
and  the  j)eople  of  the  pueblos  were  all  that  they 
could  control.  The  wild  Indians  admitted  no 
ruler  but  their  own  chiefs ;  the  tame  ones 
looked  to  the  fathers,  and  the  fathers  to  the 
college,  between  which  and  them  no  civil  or 
military  ruler  intervened.  These  Spanish  gov- 
ernors were  nine  in  number.     Their  residence 


SPANISH   GOVERISrOES    OF    CALIFORNIA.  123 

was  at  Monterey,  the  capital.     The  time  of   chap. 
their  continuance  in  office  was  as  follows : —        ^-v— ' 

Gcaspar  de  Portaki        .        .        .        .  1767  to  1771  1777- 

Felipe  de  Barri        ....  1771  to  1774  1822. 

Felipe  de  Neve 1774  to  1782 

Pedro  Pages 1782  to  1790 

Jose  Antonio  Romeu     ....  1790  to  1792 

Jose  J.  de  Arrillaga  {ad  interim)    .       .  1792  to  1794 

Diego  de  Borica        ....  1794  to  1800 

Jose  J.  de  Arrillaga       ....  1800  to  1814 

Jos6  Arguello  (ad  interim)         .         .  1814  to  1815 

Pablo  Vicente  de  Sola  .         .         .  1815  to  1822 

In  1824,  Mexico  lay  down  the  imperial  and  i824. 
put  on  the  republican  form  of  government. 
California  accepted  the  change  without  protest 
or  the  slightest  objection.  Lacking  the  quota 
of  population  essential  to  a  State,  she  was  con- 
stituted a  Territory,  with  the  privilege  of  send- 
ing a  representative  to  Congress,  who  could 
take  part  in  the  debates,  but  had  no  vote.  The 
governor,  henceforth  called  the  "  Political  Chief 
of  the  Territory,"  had  a  council,  which  was  des- 
ignated the  "  Territorial  Deputation."  In  the 
Deputation  a  proposition  was  once  made  to 
change  the  name  of  the  Territory  from  Cali- 
fornia to  "  Moctesuma,"  and  to  make  the  coat-of- 
arms  represent,  in  an  oval,  an  Indian,  with  a 
bow  and  quiver,  crossing  a  strait — an  olive  and 
an  oak  tree  on  either  hand  ;  thus  symbolizing 
the  supposed  arrival  from  across  the  Straits 
of  Anian  of  the  first  inhabitants  of  America. 
The  proposition  was  not  accepted. 


124  THE   HISTORY    OF   CALIFOEinA. 

CH  AP.  These  successive  political  revolutions  wrought 
very   few   social   changes   among   the   people. 

i82i.  They  were  still  as  jealous  of  strangers  as  ever, 
as  chary  of  their  good  services  outside  of  their 
own  circle.  In  the  archives  of  the  State  are 
preserved  many  evidences  that  all  strangers 
were  deemed  a  nuisance,  and  those  who  came 
from  the  United  States  of  America  as  especially 
worthy  of  suspicion.  "  These  Anglo-Americans 
will  become  troublesome,"  said  a  long-headed 
governor    of    California,    in    1805.      On    the 

182G.  20th  of  December,  1826,  Jedediah  S.  Smith, 
straying  from  the  East  too  far  into  the  Great 
Desert,  for  want  of  provisions  and  water  to  get 
home  with,  was  compelled  to  push  forward  into 
California.  It  stands  on  the  record  as  among  the 
many  triumphs  of  the  Smith  family,  that  one 
of  them  was  the  first  to  make  the  overland  trip 
from  the  States  to  California.  Fortunately, 
Jedediah  found  here  shipmasters  from  Ameri- 
can vessels  who  vouched  for  his  honest  inten- 
tions and  perfect  harmlessness.  He  had 
attempted,  during  the  latter  part  of  the  pre* 
ceding  winter,  to  make  his  way  up  to  the 
Columbia  River,  but  the  snow  was  so  deep 
on  the  mountains  that  he  was  obliged  to  return. 
Being  informed  by  one  of  the  Christian  Indians 
that  the  father  would  like  to  know  who  he 
was.  Captain  Smith  wrote  a  letter  to  Father 
Duran,  who  resided  at  San  Jose,  in  which  he 


A   PIONEER    SMITH.  125 

honestly  confessed  that  he  was  destitute   of  chap. 
clothing  and  most  of  the  necessaries  of  life,  «_^^^ 
that  his  horses  had  perished  for  want  of  food    1826. 
and  water,  and  that  his  object  was  to  trap  for 
beaver  and  furs  ;  and  in  conclusion  he  signed 
himself  "  your   strange   but   real   friend    and 
Christian  brother." 

But  it  was  not  Jedediah  Smith  alone  and  the 
Americans  who  were  after  the  furs.  Even  the 
Califoruians  were  awaking  to  the  value  of 
peltry,  and  the  government  of  the  Territory 
had  learned  to  raise  no  little  revenue  from  the 
licenses  to  trap  that  it  was  issuing. 

California  was  under  Spanish  rule  fifty-five 
years,  under  Mexican  but  twenty-four ;  yet  for 
nine  Spanish  she  had  thirteen  Mexican  governors, 
or  rather  that  was  the  number  of  successive  ad- 
ministrations. The  last  governor  under  Spain 
was  the  first  under  Mexico.  The  release  from 
European  fetters  was  not  a  matter  that  quick- 
ened the  California  pulse.  The  new  masters 
were  greeted  as  cordially  as  the  old  had  been, 
and  no  more  so.  The  more  radical  change  of 
Mexico  from  an  empire  to  a  republic  did  not 
fret  the  lazy  Californians.  Thej^  would  as  lief 
be  Mexican  as  Spanish,  republican  as  imperial 
— any  thing  to  keep  the  peace  at  home. 

The  seeds  of  mischief,  however,  had  been 
sown  before  these  great  political  changes  were 
announced.     Napoleon's  attempt  to  jDlace  his 


126  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFORIS"IA. 

CHAP,  brother  on  the  throne  of  Spain,  and  the  wars 
that  grew  out  of  Spain's  refusal  to  he  so  de- 

1813.  gi'aded,  rolled  a  heavy  national  debt  upon  her 
shoulders.  Staggering  with  the  burden,  she 
stepped  out  of  the  path  of  her  traditional 
policy.  The  Cortes  ordered  lands  which 
hitherto  the  crown  had  always  retained  for 
itself,  to  be  sold  or  granted  to  private  parties. 
It  was  with  the  object  of  benefiting  the  pue- 
blos, said  the  preamble  of  the  law ;  but  that 
was  a  cloak.  The  real  object  was,  to  provide 
means  to  extinguish  the  great  debt,  and  to  pay 
the  soldiers  in  the  Spanish  armies.  In  the  same 
year,  1813,  the  Cortes  expressed  the  opinion 
that  the  missions  ought  to  be  secularized. 

But  if  Spain  had  felt  herself  compelled  to 
sell  the  crown's  own  acres  to  raise  money,  and 
hint  impatience  with  the  mission  experiment, 
how  much  more  likely  would  Mexico  be  to  sum- 
mon all  neglected  resources  to  her  aid,  while 
attempting  'imperial  magnificence  Avith  prodi^ 
gality,  on  a  soil  naturally  so  repugnant  to  every 
ihincr  of  the  sort !  She  did  not  wait  lonsr, 
though  longer  than  she  played  at  empire. 

1824.  On  the  IStli  of  August,  1824,  the  Mexican 
Congress  enacted  a  general  colonization  act, 
which  is  so  liberal  as  to  excite  a  wonder  what 
hidden  motive  suggested  its  wiser  provisions. 

1828.  Four  years  later.  Congress  ordered  the  seculari- 
zation of  the  missions  to  proceed,  and  adopted  a 


A   COLONIZATIOlSr   SCHEME.  127 

system  of  rules  for  colonizing  tlie  territories,  chap. 
whicli  evince  a  clear  desire  to  tole  strangers  in, 
and  make  landholders  of  residents.  Governors  1828. 
were  aiithoiized  to  o-rant  vacant  lands  in  limited 
amounts  to  contractors,  families,  or  private  per- 
sons, whether  Mexican  or  foreigners,  who 
properly  petitioned  for  them,  and  engaged  to 
cultivate  and  inhabit  them  a  certain  portion  of 
time.  The  grants  must  not  conflict  with  muni- 
cipal rights,  nor  were  they  valid  to  contractors 
who  eno'ao:ed  to  brino:  in  a  number  of  emip-rant 
families,  without  the  approval  of  the  Supreme 
Government,  nor  valid  to  other  parties  without 
the  approval  of  the  territorial  legislature.  The 
mission  lands  it  was  strictly  forbidden  to  grant 
until  it  should  be  determined  whose  property 
they  were. 

Congress  was  nibbling  at  the  mission  prop- 
erty, but  was  not  quite  bold  enough  to  seize  it. 
Probably  the  whole  colonization  scheme,  so  far 
as  California  was  concerned,  was  but  a  plan  to 
make  the  ci\al  outgrow  the  religious  settle- 
ments there,  after  which  despoiling  the  latter 
would  be  an  easier  task.  The  year  before  the 
reojulations  above  named  were  enacted,  the 
Mexican  government  seized  seventy-eight  thou- 
sand dollars  of  the  "pious  fund,"  which  had 
reverted  to  the  Franciscans  when  the  Jesuits 
were  suppressed,  and  which,  during  the  later 
Spanish  regime,  had  .produced  a  revenue  for  the 


128  THE    HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP.  Missionary  Association  of  about  fifty  thousand 


X 


dollars  a  year. 


1828-  From  that  time,  Mexico  never  lifted  her  eye 
^^^^-  from  that  pious  fund.  From  1828  to  1831,  the 
stipends  of  four  hundred  dollars  each,  for  the 
-  Franciscan  monks,  ftiiled  to  be  paid  with  any 
regularity.  In  1832,  Congress  farmed  out  the 
property  of  the  fund  for  seven  years,  the  pro- 
ceeds to  be  paid  into  the  national  treasury.  In 
1836,  Congress,  ashamed  of  that  decree,  placed 
the  fund  at  the  disposal  of  the  president  of  the 
missions,  to  be  used  according  to  the  intention 
of  its  founders.  In  1842,  Santa  Anna  took  it 
out  of  the  hands  of  the  bishop  of  California 
(Pope  Gregory  had  erected  California  into  a 
bishopric  in  1840),  and  intrusted  it  to  the 
chief  of  the  army-staff,  to  be  "administered." 
A  few  months  later,  the  final  blow  came :  Santa 
Anna  sold  the  pious  fund  to  the  house  of 
Barrio,  and  the  Rul)io  Brothers.  To  convert 
the  missions  into  money,  to  stuff  that  always 
empty  maw,  the  treasury  of  Mexico,  was  a 
more  tedious  task. 

The  fathers  foresaw,  from  their  calm  retreats, 
the  coming  of  the  storm,  from  the  time  their 
stipends  failed  in  1828.  That  had  happened 
before,  however.  Even  under  Spain,  from  1811 
to  1818,  they  had  been  received  veiy  irregu- 
larly, if  at  all.  The  cloud  might  yet  blow 
over. 


THE   MSSION   PROPERTY.  129 

The  missions  had  a  little  passed  the  meridian  chap. 
of  their  highest  prosperity  in  1834.  At  that 
time,  according  to  De  Mofras,  the  French  histo-  1834. 
rian  of  California,  the  twenty-one  missions  had 
thirty  thousand  six  hundred  and  fifty  Indians 
living  in  their  communities.  The  horned  cattle 
numbered  four  hundred  and  twenty-four  thou- 
sand ;  the  horses,  mules,  and  asses,  l)esides  the 
wild  ones  that  scoured  the  plains  in  troops, 
numbered  sixty-two  thousand  five  hundred; 
the  sheep,  goats,  and  swine,  three  hundred  and 
twenty-one  thousand  five  hundred;  and  the 
corn,  wheat,  maize,  and  other  grains  that  they 
raised,  measured  one  hundred  and  twenty-two 
thousand  five  hundred  bushels.  The  richest  in 
cattle  and  horses,  and  the  greatest  grain  pro- 
ducer, was  San  Gabriel.  Next  to  it  in  every 
thing  else,  and  ahead  of  it  in  sheep,  was  San 
Luis  Rey,  which  also  had  the  most  Indians. 
The  Mission  Dolores  stood  low  on  the  list,  with 
its  five  hundred  Indians  shivering  in  the  wind 
and  fog,  five  thousand  horned  cattle,  one  thou- 
sand six  hundred  horses  and  mules,  four  thou- 
sand sheep,  goats,  and  hogs,  and  two  thousand 
five  hundred  bushels  of  grain. 


130  THE    IIISTOET    OF    CALIFOKXIA.. 


CHAPTER  XL 

THE  MISSIONS  SECULARIZED. 

The  trouble  that  Mexico  was  preparing  for 
her,  came  in  earnest  upon  California  in  1830. 
1830.  It  was  during  the  administration  of  Governor 
Echeandia,  who  was  the  third  of  the  list  under 
Mexico.  Monterey  was  the  capital  of  the  Ter- 
ritory, but  the  pleasanter  air  of  San  Diego  in- 
duced him,  for  the  sake  of  his  delicate  constitu- 
tion, to  reside  much  of  the  time  at  the  more 
southern  port.  He  was  contracted  in  his  views, 
despotic  in  the  exercise  of  his  power,  and  self- 
ish in  his  relations  with  foreigners.  Occasion- 
ally there  was  an  insurrection  to  put  down,  like 
that  of  Soliz,  which  sm'prised  the  garrison  of 
Monterey  in  the  night,  and  overpowered  it,  the 
town  surrendering  without  the  loss  of  a  drop 
of  blood.  Soliz  received  the  moneys  in  the 
hands  of  the  commissary,  and  was  elected 
president  of  the  insurgents,  whose  manifesto 
declared  the  intention  not  to  interfere  with 
foreigners,  nor  to  interrupt  the  commerce  of  tlie 
country.     He  had  under  his  command  one  hun- 


ATTEMPT    AT   SECULARIZATI01S-.  131 

dred  well-armed  men,  which  was  a  powerful  chap. 
force  for  the  place  and  the  times,  but  in  the 
course  of  a  few  weeks  Echeandia's  party  de-  isao. 
feated  them,  and  the  ringleaders  were  sent  to 
San  Bias.  An  old  friar  of  the  San  Luis 
Obispo  Mission  was  found  guilty  of  abetting 
the  treason,  and  he  too  was  embarked  on  board 
a  merchant-ship,  and  sent  out  of  the  country. 

Echeandia,  probably  under  instructions  from 
Mexico,  though  others  doubt  that,  undertook 
to  carry  into  effect  the  neglected  act  of  the 
Cortes  of  1813,  for  the  secularization  of  the  mis- 
sions, which  the  Mexican  Congress  in  1828  had 
ordered  to  be  enforced.  The  devastation  of  the 
missions  now  commenced.  The  Indians  were 
encouraged  in  their  refusal  to  labor;  their 
emancipation,  for  which  the  act  provided,  they 
thought  meant  freedom  from  work,  and  license 
to  indulge  in  every  form  of  vice. 

But  the  evil  day  was  postponed  by  the  -  ar- 
rival of  a  successor  to  Echeandia.  Manuel 
Victoria  reached  Santa  Barbara  on  the  10th  of 
January,  1831.  He  was  a  man  of  courage,  and  1831. 
rather  headstrong.  He  came  up  unattended, 
asking  no  ceremonious  reception.  He  had 
great  faith  in  his  own  capacity  to  rule,  and  did 
not  conceal  his  disgust  at  the  loose  way  in  which 
matters  were  mauao;ed.  He  set  out  to  reform 
abuses,  without  preparing  the  public  for  his 
reforms,  or  very  carefully  consulting  the  con- 


132  THE    HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP  stitiition, from  wLich  he  derived  all  his  authority. 
^_^^J^  He  had  no  patience  with  the  slow  course  of  jus- 
1831.  tice.  In  those  days  all  cases  of  complaint,  civil 
or  criminal,  went  before  the  pueblo's  ayunta- 
miento  (or  town  council),  or  the  alcalde,  whose 
duties  were  those  of  a  mayor  and  judge  com- 
bined. But  their  decisions  had  to  be  confirmed 
by  the  commander  of  the  presidio  before  they 
were  binding.  In  a  capital  offence,  the  alcalde 
held  a  preliminary  examination,  and  sent  up 
the  accused,  if  found  guilty,  to  the  general  for 
trial. 

Two  Indians  had  been  convicted  of  cattle- 
stealing.  Victoria  ordered  them  to  be  publicly 
shot  in  the  presidio  of  Monterey.  It  was  a 
short  cut  to  justice,  and  it  put  a  stop  to  cattle- 
stealing  ;  but  it  was  unconstitutional ;  it  gave 
his  enemies  a  handle  against  him,  and  hastened 
the  outl)reak  of  a  revolution.  So  soon  as  the 
reins  of  government  were  in  his  hands,  he  had 
taken  measures  to  counteract  the  policy  of  his 
predecessors  with  regard  to  the  missions. 
Echeandia  had  retired  to  Monterey,  and  Inspec- 
tor Pddrez,  who  had  been  his  evil  genius,  to  San 
Francisco.  Both  busied  themselv^es  in  drawing 
together  the  malcontents,  who  foresaw  their 
fortunes  in  the  destruction  of  the  missions. 
Pildrez,  working  his  mischief  too  openly,  was 
dispatched  to  San  Bias. 

Victoria  had  placed  all  confidence  in  Portilla, 


TREACHERY — VICTORIA    RETURNS.  133 

tlie   commander   at   San  Diesjo,  and  in  return  chap. 

.  .  XI 

the  commander  gave  him  timely  notice  that  ._^^^ 

certain  persons  had  met  and  declared  for  i83i. 
Echeandia  in  that  extreme  southern  port.  The 
governor,  dreaming  of  no  treachery,  started  out 
with  a  dozen  men  to  meet  Portilla  and  consult 
with  him.  As  he  travelled,  he  heard  that  the 
rebels  had  marched  up  to  Los  Angeles,  taken 
possession  of  the  town,  arrested  the  alcalde, 
and  were  pushing  on  northward,  numbering 
now  two  hundred  men.  Victoria  pressed  on 
to  meet  them,  his  force  increased  to  thirty 
persons.  When  they  confronted  each  other,  the 
governor  called  upon  the  rebel  leader  to  surren- 
der, and  then  for  the  first  time  discovered  that 
it  was  his  trusted  friend  Portilla!  Instantly 
the  governor's  firmest  supporter  was  shot  dead 
by  the  traitors.  Then  Victoria,  rushing  in 
with  "  sacred  fury,"  and  dealing  his  blows  on 
every  side,  routed  the  rebels  like  so  many  sheep, 
and  marched  on  victorious  to  the  mission  of 
San  Gabriel,  where  the  loss  of  blood  comj^elled 
him  to  halt.  Portilla's  vagabonds,  learning 
that  the  champion  was  badly  wounded,  rallied, 
gathered  about  the  mission,  and  demanded  the 
governor's  surrender.  Victoria,  seeing  his  case 
hopeless,  replied  that,  if  they  would  leave  him 
to  himself,  he  would  resign  his  command  and 
return  to  Mexico. 

He  kept  his  word.     Friends  gathered  about 


184  THE   HISTOKY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

OHAP.  him,  tendered  their  services,  and  pleaded  that  a 

^^'    promise  extorted  coidd  be  violated  with  honor ; 

1832.   but  he  adhered  to  the  letter  of  his.     At  San 

Dieeo  he  embarked  for  San  Bias,  and  thence 

retired  to  a  cloister  in  Mexico. 

The  victorious  party  formed  a  new  govern- 
ment at  Los  Angeles,  and  the  legislature  ap- 
pointed Don  Pio  Pico  governor.  But  soon, 
news  came  from  the  north  that  the  ne^v  gov- 
ernment would  not  there  he  recognized.  Echean- 
dia,  retreating  to  San  Juan  Capistrano,  gathered 
about  him  many  Indians,  whom  his  promises 
enticed  from  their  work  at  the  missions,  and  in- 
augurated a  series  of  robberies  and  murders. 
Other  Indians  at  distant  points,  especially  at 
the  south,  revolted.  The  Indian  was  free,  and 
as  he  staggered  along  the  pathway  where  he 
had  hitherto  been  a  willing  slave,  he  felt  that 
his  freedom  entitled  him  to  do  any  violence 
that  misrht  be  convenient.  Anarchy  ruled 
throughout  the  province,  and  confusion  covered 
the  whole  country. 

It  was  happy  for  the  distracted  laud  that 
Jose  Figueroa  was  the  next  governor ;  but 
his  voyage  up  from  Acapulco  prefigured 
'  the  unhappy  state  in  which  he  was  to  find 
his  command.  The  bi-ig  in  which  he  sailed, 
accompanied  by  his  officers,  soldiers,  and  eleven 
missionaries  from  the  College  of  Zacatecas,  was 
struck  with  lightning,  while  at  ]\Iazatlan ;  but 


GOVERXOK    FIGUEROA's    ARRIVAL.  135 

fortunately,  the  fire  was  extinguished  just  before  chap. 
it  reached  the  powder.     At  Cape  St.  Lucas  the  __^_ 
troops  revolted,  declaring  for  Santa  Anna,  who    1832. 
was  in  arms  against  the  ruling  Mexican  faction, 
and  compelled  the  captain  to  take  his  vessel 
to  San  Bias.     The  captain  returned  from  that 
point  to  St.  Lucas,  took  on  the  governor,  a  few 
faithful  friends,  and  the .  friars,  and  landed  all 
safely  in  California  in  January,  1833.    Figueroa    1833. 
had  been  ordered  to  suspend  the  operation  of 
the   secularization   act,   the    Supreme  Govern- 
ment, though  not  opposed  to  the  policy,  having 
entirely  disapproved  the  method  of  effecting  it 
that   Echeandia   and   Padrez    had    attempted. 
Figueroa  published  a   circular,  pardoning  all 
who  had  taken  part  in  the  revolution  against 
Victoria ;  and  Echeandia  went  down  to   San 
Diego,  to  prepare  for  returning  to  Mexico. 

About  this  time,  owing  to  the  growing  jeal- 
ousy of  whatever  reminded  of  Spain,  the  juris- 
diction of  the  missions  was  divided.  The  es- 
tablishments north  of  San  Luis  Obispo  fell  to 
the  management  of  the  native  Mexican  friars 
from  the  Franciscan  College  of  Zacatecas,  while 
to  the  old  Spanish  Franciscan  directors  were 
left  the  missions  of  the  south. 

The  Mexican  Congress  had  repeatedly  passed 
acts  concerning  secularization,  and  afterwards 
annulled  them  again.  But  now  PMrez,  whom 
Victoria  had  packed  off  in  disgrace  to  San  Bias, 


136  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFOEiaA. 

CHAP,  was  in  favor  at  the  capital,  and  througli  Lis  in- 

, ■     fluence  the  president  gave  his  sanction  to  an 

1834.  act  which  Congress  had  passed  (in  1833),  or- 
dering the  secularization  of  the  missions  and 
the  colonization  of  both  the  Californias.  Hijar 
was  appointed  governor  and  director  of  coloni- 
zation, while  Pddrez  himself  was  made  sub- 
director.  Hijar  started  for  his  post,  accom- 
panied by  a  large  number  of  colonists,  to  whom 
half  a  dollar  a  day  was  assigned  till  their  ar- 
rival, with  a  free  passage,  and  maintenance 
during  the  voyage.  In  the  brig  Natalia  he 
arrived  at  San  Diego  on  the  1st  of  September, 
1834,  Avith  a  part  of  his  colonists,  Avho  were  of 
])oth  sexes.  Pddrez,  with  the  rest,  reached 
Monterey  on  the  25th.  The  Natalia — it  was 
the  same  vessel  on  which  Napoleon  had  es- 
caped from  the  island  of  Elba — reached  Mon- 
terey on  the  14th  of  October,  was  beached 
there  in  a  storm,  and  utterly  wrecked.  It  came 
out,  during  the  bitter  discussion  that  followed 
Hijar's  arrival,  that  the  president  had  author- 
ized the  appropriation  of  fourteen  thousand 
dollars,  payable  in  tallow  from  the  missions,  for 
the  purchase  of  this  brig,  and  that  the  colonists 
were  organized  as  a  company,  with  power  to 
monopolize  the  commerce  of  the  country,  ma- 
ting the  missions  and  towns  their  depots,  while 
all  their  capital  was  to  be  squeezed  out  of  the 
missions. 


A   COLONY   UNDER   HIJAR.  137 

When  the  news  was  fairly  bruited  tlirougli  chap. 
California,  tlie  missionaries  aroused  to  a  new  _^_^ 
ambition — an  ambition  to  destroy  what  they  bad    1834. 
been  so  long  in  building.     They  saw  that  the 
destruction  of  the  missions  was  a  foregone  con- 
clusion.     Orders    were    given,    and    at    once 
obeyed,    for   the   immediate   slaughter  of  the 
cattle.     Of  thousands  that  were  slain,  nothing 
but  the  hides  was  saved ;  the  carcasses  were 
left  to  enrich  the  plains. 

Figueroa  had  been  ordered  to  provide  a  prop- 
er spot  for  the  colonists,  and  he  had  selected 
San  Francisco  Solano,  on  the  north  side  of  San 
Francisco  harbor,  for  the  purpose.  He  received 
Hijar  with  civility  and  proper  demonstrations 
of  respect,  but  showed  him  that  his  arrival  had 
been  anticipated  by  an  overland  order  to  him- 
self, from  the  secretary  of  state,  not  to  deliver 
up  to  him  the  civil  command — Santa  Anna  h  av- 
ing  displaced  President  Gomez  Farias,  and  as- 
sumed the  government.  Hijar,  as  simple  direc- 
tor of  the  colony,  was  reduced  to  a  man  of  little 
consequence,  unless  he  could  get  possession  of 
the  missions,  of  which  the  prospect  grew  dim- 
mer dail}^ 

But  the  colonists  at  Solano  were  brewing  a 
revolt.  One  of  their  number,  who  had  been 
chosen  as  a  commissioner  to  the  home  Govern- 
ment, proceeded  with  his  friend  to  Los  Angeles, 
under   the  pretence  of    embarking  from  that 


138  THE    niSTOEY    OF    CALIFORlSnA. 

CHAP,  point  for  Mexico  witli  dispatclies  from  Hijar. 
But  they  went  no  farther  than  Los  Angeles. 

1835.  There,  on  the  7th  of  March,  1835,  these  two 
Solano  men,  and  some  fifty  others,  declared 
Figueroa  unworthy  of  confidence,  appointed  the 
first  alcalde  provisional  governor  of  the  Terri- 
tory in  civil  matters,  and  Portilla  in  matters 
military,  announced  the  restoration  of  the  mis- 
sions to  the  fathers,  declared  their  plans  sub- 
ject to  the  approbation  of  the  Supreme  Govern- 
ment, and  solemnly  averred  that  they  would 
not  lay  down  their  arms  until  all  these  points 
had  been  gained.  At  three  o'clock,  the  same 
afternoon,  the  revolution  was  ended,  in  Los 
Angeles,  where  it  began,  their  own  agent 
having  delivered  over  to  the  authorities  the 
I'ingleaders.  But  in  other  places,  especially  by 
the  colonists,  it  was  for  some  time  regarded  as 
an  accomplished  revolution.  These  poor  fel- 
lows were  of  all  trades  and  professions,  except- 
ing those  which  would  have  been  useful  to 
them.  There  were  artists  and  printers,  and 
teachers  of  music,  but  never  a  farmer;  there 
were  goldsmiths,  where  there  was  no  gold  in 
use  ;  blacksmiths,  for  a  country  that  employed 
very  little  iron ;  carpenters,  where  adol^e  and 
tiles  were  the  principal  buildhig  materials ; 
painters,  for  a  region  where  paint  was  in  no  de- 
mand ;  shoemakers  and  tailors,  for  a  people  who 
shod    themselves    with    raw-hides,    and  wore 


figueeoa's  death.  139 

blankets  instead  of  coats.  In  their  disappoint-  chap. 
ment  they  talked  loudly,  and  sometimes  trea-  ,J.^_ 
sonably,  and  at  last  the  more  restless  and  least  1835. 
prudent  of  them  were  banished  to  Mexico. 

The  Mexican  scheme  of  secularization  was 
not  offensive  to  the  California  politicians.  The 
Territorial  les-islature  at  last  came  rouud  to 
it.  Administrators  of  the  mission  property 
were  appointed.  These  swindled  all  parties 
pretty  effectually,  but  at  last  turned  over  all 
the  missions  to  Governor  Figueroa.  The  gov- 
ernor's position  was  not  one  to  be  coveted.  The 
missionaries  were  his  enemies,  the  Indians  were 
his  enemies,  the  great  horde  of  swindling  spec- 
ulators were  his  enemies,  and  all  for  different 
reasons.  He  was  harassed  and  perplexed, 
sick  and  disheartened,  and  at  last  he  died.  He 
was  the  best  governor  that  California  had  yet 
seen.  Aiming  conscientiously  to  perform  the 
very  delicate  duties  imposed  upon  him,  he  suc- 
ceeded in  what  he  undertook,  but  the  penalty 
of  success  was  his  death.  The  "  Excellent  Dep 
utation  "  in  session  at  Monterey  passed  the  most 
extravagantly  eulogistic  resolutions  in  his  honor. 
It  ordered  a  portrait  of  the  deceased  to  be 
painted,  and  a  monument  in  his  memory  to  be 
erected  and  inscribed  with  the  flattering  title, 
"  Father  of  his  Country."  Figueroa  was  forty- 
three  years  old  when  he  died,  on  the  29th  of 
September,  1835.     His  remains  were  carried  in 


140  THE  HISTORY    OF   CALIFOPvNIA. 

an  American  vessel  to  Santa  Barbara,  and  de- 
posited in  a  vault  of  the  mission  cliurcli,  min- 
1835.  ute-guus  being  fired  as  they  were  conveyed 
from  the  vessel  to  the  burial-place,  and  a  large 
procession  following  them  to  the  grave. 


EEBELLION.  141 


CHAPTER  Xn. 

REBELLION.^SECESSIOK—RE  STORA  TIOK— PANICS. 

After   a  brief  interval,  durinci:  wbicli  Jose  chap. 

•  •  XII 

Castro  acted  as  governor,  Nicholas  Gutierrez 
succeeded  to  tlie  command,  in  accordance  with  i836. 
the  ^^dll  of  Figueroa,  but  he  held  it  very  briefly, 
for  Mariano  Chico  was  sent  up  from  Mexico  to 
be  governor.  But  Cliico's  tyranny  soon  brought 
him  into  disgrace ;  he  was  expelled  from  the 
Territory,  and  Gutierrez  once  more  assumed  the 
reins.  Matters  now  went  quietly  enough  until 
there  broke  out  a  quarrel  between  Gutierrez  ^nd 
the  custom-house  department,  which  was  sup- 
posed to  have  been  stimulated  by  resident  for" 
eigners,  retired  hunters  and  trappers  from  the 
Columbia  River  and  the  Rocky  Mountain  region, 
and  by  Mexican  adventurers. 

The  administrator  of  the  customs  was  An- 
gel Ramirez,  a  Mexican,  and  formerly  a  friar  of 
the  Zacatecas  College.  Next  in  authority  was 
Juan  Bautista  Alvarado,  a  native  Californian^ 
who  for  years  had  been  secretary  of  the  Terri- 
torial Deputation.  He  was  a  person  of  some 
talent,  was  educated  by  the  missionaries,  popular^ 


142  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  and  acquainted   with  the    Eng-lish    lano^uaare. 
XII  •  .  o  o      o 

With  this  Alvarado,  Governor  Gutierrez  quar- 

183G.  relied  on  a  point  of  etiquette  concerning  the 
posting  of  guards  at  the  landing-places.  The 
dispute  running  very  high,  Alvarado's  arrest 
was  ordered,  but  he  escaped  from  the  town,  and 
the  warrant  was  not  served.  His  asylum  was 
the  cabin  of  Isaac  Graham,  of  Santa  Cruz,  who 
had  crossed  the  Rocky  Mountains  from  Tennes- 
see and  settled  amono;  the  Santa  Cruz  Moun- 
tains.  Alvarado  told  his  stor^'  to  Graham,  and 
a  scheme  was  concocted  on  the  spot,  with  the 
understanding  that,  if  it  resulted  happily,  the 
independence  of  California  from  Mexico  should 
be  declared.  Graham  raised  in  a  few  days  fifty 
riflemen,  and  Alvarado  brought  to  join  them 
a  hundred  Californians,  under  Jose  Castro. 
They  entered  Monterey  at  night,  having  ob- 
taifled  amnmnition  from  American  vessels  in 
the  harbor,  shut  up  the  governor  and  twice 
their  own  number  of  soldiers  in  the  presidio, 
and  demanded  a  surrender.  Gutierrez  hesita 
ting,  a  ball  was  fired  from  a  brass  four-pounder 
— the  only  shot  that  was  fired  during  the  rev 
olution — and  it  struck  the  roof  of  the  presi 
dio.  This  brous-ht  him  to  terms,  and  the  Mexi 
cans  surrendered.  Castro  and  Alvarado  took 
possession  of  the  to^vn. 

The  people  of  Monterey,  of  California  indeed, 
were  lipe  for  the  change.     They  wanted  the 


ALVAKADO'S    INSURRECTION.  143 

Federal   Constitution   of  1824   restored.      As  chap. 

there  was  no  prospect  of  that  until  the  next  '^^ 

coup  d'etat,  which,  even  at  the  pace  of  Mexican  i836, 
revolutions,  might  be  a  twelvemonth  off,  the 
proclamation  which  followed  caused  no  great 
offence,  thou^'h  it  showed  that  Alvarado  had 
by  unanimous  consent  been  placed  at  the  head 
of  the  government,  and  Guadalupe  Vallejo 
at  the  head  of  the  military ;  and  that  the 
Territorial  Deputation  had  adopted  resolutions 
declaring  California  independent,  and  erecting 
it  into  a  free  and  sovereign  State,  whose  reli- 
gion was  to  be  Roman  Catholic  without  admit- 
ting the  exercise  of  any  other,  though  no  per- 
son was  to  be  molested  for  his  religious  opin- 
ion. The  southern  part  of  the  country  did  not 
come  in  quite  so  heartily  to  this  arrangement, 
but  at  the  north  it  was  accepted  with  pleasure. 
Gutierrez,  his  officers  and  soldiers,  were  expelled 
from  the  country,  and  most  of  the  Mexican  of- 
ficials throughout  the  Territory  were  sent  home. 

It  was  said  at  the  time,  that  a  flag  with  a 
lone  star  on  it  was  prejDared  for  the  new  Repub- 
lic, but  the  victorious  insurgents  lacked  the 
courage  to  use  it.  With  characteristic  dread  of 
all  changes,  except  in  the  one  item  of  govern- 
ors, they  still  kept  the  Mexican  banner  float- 
ing on  all  their  public  places. 

The  Mexican  Government  fulminated  a  large 
quantity  of  paper  proclamations  at  California 


144  THE    HISTORY    OF    CALIFOllNIA. 

CHAF.  for  its  rebellion,  and  threatened  terrible  cliastise- 

XII 

^_^_^  ments.  But,  there  coming  hot  work  for  the 
1837.  politicians  at  Mexico,  California  was  allowed  to 
govern  herself  until  there  should  be  peace  at 
the  capital ;  and  foreigners,  the  customs  being 
now  diminished  one-half,  were  satisfied.  Alva- 
rado  sent  General  Castro  down  to  Santa  Bar- 
bara, to  discover  and  improve  the  feeling  there 
towards  the  new  government.  As  Captain 
Graham  and  his  fifty  riflemen  accompanied 
Castro,  all  that  part  of  the  country  was  readily 
persuaded  that  independence  was  desirable. 

At  Los  Angeles,  a  little  party  proclaimed  it- 
self in  favor  of  adherence  to  Mexico,  and  grate- 
ful Mexico  named  as  the  governor  to  be  defend- 
ed by  that  party,  Carlos  Carillo,  Alvarado's 
uncle.  Carillo  declared  war  at  once,  but  Alva- 
rado  soon  captured  his  uncle  and  set  a  guard 
over  him  in  his  house  at  Santa  Barbara,  sent 
off  his  advisers  as  prisoners  to  Sonoma,  and  dis- 
patched a  letter  of  explanation  to  Mexico.  As 
they  were  still  busy  at  the  capital,  the  victori- 
ous Alvarado  was  approved  in  all  his  acts,  and 
appointed  governor;  while,  to  make  matters 
right  with  the  vanquished,  to  Carillo  was  given 
the  little  island  of  Santa  Bosa.  In  retui*n  for 
Mexican  generosity,  Alvarado  recognized  Mexi- 
co again  as  the  central  power,  and  Upper  Cali- 
fornia was  divided  into  two  districts,  each  repre- 
senting a  State  government,  with  Castro  as  pre- 


ALVAEADO    THROWS    OFF   HIS    ALLIES.  145 

feet  of  tlie  North,  and  Pefia,  a  Mexican  lawyer  chap. 
wlio  had  figured  l^riskly  in  the  revolution  of  v_.^^J_ 
independence,  prefect  of  the  South,  while  both    i8-io. 
were  subject  to  the  jurisdiction  of  Alvarado  at 
Monterey.      Meanwhile,  the  missions  were  by 
all  parties  regarded  as  fair  objects  of  plunder, 
and  the  forts  of  the  presidios  were  left  to  fall  to 
ruins. 

But,  as  Alvarado  grew  easy  in  his  seat,  the 
remembrance  that  he  owed  his  elevation  to 
foreigcners,  beacan  to  chafe  him.  There  were 
subjects  of  his  who  slapped  him  on  the  shoul- 
der, and  forgot  the  dignity  that  belonged  to  the 
executive.  Graham,  the  Tennesseean,  was  espe- 
cially obnoxious,  for  he  did  not  mind  telling 
the  governor  to  his  face,  that,  but  for  his  aid, 
his  excellency  would  still  be  simply  a  clerk. 
It  was  at  last  an  absolute  necessity  to  get  the 
Tennesseean  out  of  the  way.  The  nuisance  was 
intolerable,  and  fortune  provided  an  early  excuse 
for  abating  it.  Graham  had  challenged  all  the 
country  to  produce  a  s\vifter  horse  on  the  race- 
course than  one  that  he  had  trained.  A  Yankee 
accepted  the  challenge,  and,  to  make  the  bargain 
sure,  the  terms  of  the  race  were  drawn  up  in 
wi'iting.  The  spies  of  Alvarado  got  a  passing 
glimpse  of  the  document,  and  construed  it  into 
a  terrible  plot  to  overthrow  all  that  was  stable 
in  California. 

Castro  was  sent  with  an  armed  force  to  ar- 
10 


146  THE    HISTORY    OF    CALIF0ETT1.V. 

CHAP,  rest   Graham,  at   the   dead  of  night.      Other 

YTT 

■  Americans,  and  some  Europeans,  about  a 
1840.  hundred  iu  all,  were  seized  and  taken  to  Mon- 
terey. Some,  who  were  considered  the  most 
dangerous,  were  conducted  to  Santa  Barbara, 
and  afterwards  fifteen  or  t^veuty  of  them  were 
embarked,  in  chains,  to  San  Bias.  This  event, 
which  was  celebrated  with  a  mass  and  a  gen- 
eral thanksgiving,  occurred  in  May,  1840.  Two 
months  later,  a  French  ship,  and  the  American 
man-of-war  St.  Louis,  entered  the  harbor  of 
*  Monterey.      Now  was  Alvarado  in  a  most  un- 

happy predicament.  Vallejo  was  not  present, 
and  Castro  had  gone  to  Mexico  with  the  pris- 
oners. Fortunately,  in  the  very  nick  of  time,  he 
heard,  or  feigned  to  hear,  of  a  disturbance 
among  the  Indians  in  the  interior.  He  slipped 
off  at  once  to  attend  to  that,  nor  did  he  return 
till  the  ships  of  war,  finding  no  party  to  get 
an  apology  from,  had  sailed  again.  Then 
every  thing  went  on  in  its  old  career  of  quiet, 
dilapidation  until  1842. 

To  the  consternation  of  Alvarado,  and  the 
1842.  amazement  of  everybody,  in  July  of  that  year 
the  exiled  foreigners  returned  to  Monterey. 
They  came  in  a  Mexican  vessel,  were  much  im- 
proved in  personal  appearance,  and  admirably 
armed.  In  their  absence  they  had  l)een  main- 
tained by  Government,  and  now  they  were  sent 
home  at  its  expense.     This  extraordinary  issue 


ARRIVAL   OF    MICHELTORENA.  147 

of  their  exile  had  been  accomplished  through  chap. 
the  urgency  of  the  British  consul  at  Mexico,  ^_^ 
who  succeeded  besides  in  getting  the  guard  of    1842.* 
the  prisoners  themselves  imprisoned. 

Meanwhile,  Vallejo,  who  had  found  Alvarado 
impracticable,  from  his  retirement  at  Sonoma 
had  begged  the  General  Government  to  appoint 
some  one  as  political  governor  in  his  stead ;  and 
Alvarado  had  as  earnestly  solicited  a  new  gen- 
eral in  place  of  Vallejo.  Both  were  gratified. 
In  August,  1842,  General  Micheltorena  arrived 
suddenly  at  San  Diego.*  He  came  empowered 
to  assume  both  civil  and  military  command. 
Only  a  moderate  force  attended  him,  but  close 
behind  were  enough  to  make  all  opposition 
futile. 

Micheltorena  was  already  distinguished  as  a 
soldier.  He  had  served  with  Santa  Anna  in 
the  Texan  campaign,  and  he  brought  away 
laurels  if  no  scars.  His  soldiers  were  veterans 
too,  veterans  in  crime  if  not  in  war,  a  hard  lot 
of  convicts,  who  brought  their  wives  and  chil- 
dren with  them,  for  they  were  of  the  sort  who 
trundle  their  families  around  with  them — not* 
because  they  prize  their  society  so  much,  as  be- 
cause they  have  no  other  home  than  the  place 
where  they  feed  to-day. 

The  new  governor  was  received  with  dis- 
tinguished honors.  A  series  of  grand  dinners, 
fandangoes,  and  bull-fights,  was  arranged. 


148  THE   HISTORY    OF   CALIFOEITIA. 

CHAP.  Miclieltorena  was  travelling  northward  like  a 
■^"'  prince,  and  heing  hailed  like  a  true  lord,  when 
1842.  suddenly  word  reached  him  that  put  fandangoes 
out  of  his  head  and  lent  wings  to  his  feet.  He 
and  his  forces  dashed  back  into  Los  Angeles  at 
a  speed  quite  unbecoming  the  gubernatorial  dig- 
nity. The  startling  news  that  brought  his 
triumphal  entry  so  suddenly  to  an  end  was  in- 
tellisrence  well  calculated  to  excite  alarm. 
Commodore  Jones,  of  the  United  States  Navy, 
had  sailed  into  Monterey  harbor  with  the  sloop- 
of-war  Oycme  and  the  frigate  United  States,  on 
the  19th  of  October,  1842,  had  taken  posses- 
sion of  the  town  (Alvarado  gladly  surrender- 
ing on  the  20th  to  a  foreigner  I'ather  than  to  a 
Mexican),  had  run  up  the  stars  and  stripes,  and 
proclaimed  the  country  a  portion  of  the  Amer- 
ican Union.  The  people  had  saluted  the  new 
flag  with  genuine  delight.  A  braver  general 
than  Micheltorena  would  have  been  pardoned 
a  swift  gait  to  the  nearest  place  of  safety. 

Next  day,  Commodore  Jones  pulled  down  the 
stars  and  stripes  again,  and  handsomely  apolo- 
gized. It  was  all  a  mistake.  The  commodore 
had  "blundered"  the  seizure.  He  knew  the 
programme  of  the  politicians,  that  Texas  was  to 
be  annexed,  that  Mexico  was 'to  go  "on  the 
rampage,"  that  the  Americans  were  to  discover 
unparalleled  outrages  on  the  part  of  Mexico, 
that  finally  war  was  to  be  proclaimed,  and  then 


THE   SUST^VKE   OF   THE    AJIEEICAlf    FLAG.  149 

California  would  be  fair  game  for  the  Ameri-  chap. 
can  squadron  in  the  Pacific.  The  commodore, 
knowing  so  much,  misconstrued  some  rumors  i8-i2. 
tbat  he  had  heard,  did  not  doubt  that  war  was 
declared,  and  so  pounced  upon  Monterey. 
When  he  saw  his  error  and  had  apologized, 
Micheltorena  came  up  to  the  capital  and  as- 
sumed control  without  opposition.  That  his 
ammunition  might  be  out  of  the  way  of  the 
Yankees  in  case  of  another  such  fi'eak  as  that 
of  Jones,  he  stored  it  with  srreat  cai'e  at  the  mis- 
sion  of  San  Juan. 

But  Alvarado,  deposed,  was  not  idle.  He  1844. 
had  harmonized  again  with  General  Vallejo; 
and  the  two,  aided  by  Castro,  November,  184:4, 
captured  the  Mission  of  San  Juan  and  the  gov- 
ernors ammunition.  Micheltorena  gave  the 
rebels  eight  days  in  which  to  lay  down  their 
arms.  When  that  time  was  U23,  the  parties  met, 
disagreed  upon  the  terms  of  peace,  and  the  Cal- 
ifornians  made  ready  to  attack  the  capital. 
Micheltorena  called  for  help  on  Captain  Sutter, 
whose  settlement  in  the  Sacramento  Valley  had 
become  quite  an  important  power  in  the  State. 
The  captain  consented,  but  before  he  would 
start  he  ma<le  a  bargain  for  his  friends.  Since 
1841  he  had  enjoyed  a  grant  of  land  for  him- 
self, had  erected  a  fort  near  the  junction  of  the 
American  and  the  Sacramento  Rivers,  and,  as 
justice   of  the  peace,  ruled   the   region.     He 


150  THE    HISTORY    OF    CALIFOEl^IA. 

CHAP,  asked — and  MicheltoreDa  granted  tliis  request — 
.^^^^  that  every  petition  for  land  on  which  Sutter  as 

1844.  justice  had  favorably  reported  should  be  taken 
as  granted,  and  that  a  copy  of  the  general  title 
which  the  governor  then  conferred  should  he 
regarded  no  less  binding  than  a  formal  grant. 

Sutter  and  a  hundred  men  then  placed  them- 
selves at  the  service  of  the  governor ;  but  his 
excellency  marched  with  such  deliberation,  that 
a  good  part  of  his  foreign  allies  turned  back  in 
0/       disgust.      On   the ^^  21st   of  February,    Castro, 

1845.  heading  the  rebels,  pushed  out  from  Los  Ange- 
les, and  the  hostile  parties  met.  As  Castro 
had  some  fifty  foreignei's  w^ith  him,  by  agree- 
ment all  the  foreignei's  from  both  parties  with- 
drew, to  allow  the  Californians  and  Mexicans 
to  fight  out  their  own  quarrel  alone. 

After  a  brief  and  bloodless  engagement,  that 
was  resumed  next  day,  when,  it  is  said,  four 
persons  were  killed,  Mexico  surrendered.  The 
California  "Deputation"  declared  its  oldest 
minister,  Pio  Pico,  governor.  Castro  was  ap- 
pointed general,  and  Micheltorena,  Jiis  officers, 
and  all  of  his  soldiers  that  had  not  married  in 
the  country,  were  put  on  ])oard  an  American 
bark  and  hustled  off  to  San  Bias. 

In  the  spring  of  the  following  year,  Pio  Pico 
still  being  governor,  and  Castro  busy  at  the  north 
plotting  how  to  oust  him — ^the  bone  of  contention 
beino-  the  custom-house,  which  each  wanted  at 


GOVEENOPvS    WHILE    UNDEK    riEXTCO. 


151 


tlie  place  of  his  residence — there  glided  in  from  chap 

over  the  mountains  at  the  east,  a  young  sur-  . 

veyor  with  a  little  party  of  old  mountaineers,    i846. 
whose  appearance  brought  all  Castro's  schemes 
to  a  halt,  and  put  a  period  to  the  civil  wars  and 
the  old  times  in  California  together. 

The  followino;  are  the  names  of  the  Govern- 
ors  of  California,  after  Mexico  declared  her  in- 
dependence of  Spain,  and  until  the  American 
conquest — a  term  which  continued  from  1822 
to  1846  :— 


Pablo  Vicente  de  Sola       .     . 

Nov. 

1822  to 

1823. 

Luis  Arguello 

1823  to  June  1825. 

Jos3  Maria  de  Echeandia  . 

June  1825  to  Jan. 

1831. 

Manuel  Victoria        .     .     . 

Jan. 

1831  to  Jan. 

1832. 

PioPico 

.    Jan. 

1832  to  Jan. 

1833. 

Jose  Figueroa       .... 

Jan. 

1883  to  Aug. 

1835. 

Jose  Castro 

.    Aug. 

1835  to  Jan. 

1836. 

Nicholas  Gutierrez,       .     . 

Jan. 

1836  to  May 

1836. 

Mariano  Chico      .     .  •  .     . 

.    May 

1836. 

Nicholas  Gutierrez  .     .     . 

1836. 

Juan  B.  Alvarado     .     .     . 

1836  to  Dec. 

1842. 

Manuel  Micheltorena    .     . 

Dec. 

1842  to  Feb. 

1845 

PioPico 

Feb. 

1845  to  July 

1846. 

152  THE   HISTOKY    OF    CALIF OENIA. 


\ 


CHAPITER  Xm. 

THE  "NATIVE   CALIFORNIA N'S.'* 

CHAP.       Theee  times  the  Californians  had  struck  for 

YTTT 

^__^_^  their  independence  from  Mexico,  and  won  it :  in 
1846.  1832,  when  they  dej^osed  Victoria,  and  made 
Pio  Pico  governor,  but  in  the  year  of  anarchy 
that  followed  were  glad  to  welcome  Figueroa 
from  Mexico;  in  1836,  when  Alvarado,  by  the 
aid  of  the  Tennesseean,  expelled  Gutierrez,  and 
straightway  forgot  the  independence  he  had 
proclaimed,  on  being  recognized  by  Mexico  as 
governor  ad  interim  ;  and  in  1845,  when  Alva- 
rado, Vallejo,  and  Castro,  expelled  Micheltorena, 
and  Pio  Pico  was  again  made  governor.  But 
they  never  got  much  farther  than  to  declare  in- 
dependence, to  adorn  the  State  with  a  new  set 
of  offices,  and  appropriate  the  customs  from  the 
shipping.  They  never  fairly  claimed  the  coun- 
try as  their  own.  The  right  to  grant  lands 
they  seemed  to  consider  as  solely  resident  in 
the  home  Government,  nor  do  we  know  that 
they  ever  demurred  to  the  right  of  Mexico,  at 
the  treaty  of  Guadalupe  Hidalgo,  to  stipulate 


THE   NATIVE   CALIFOENIANS.  153 

tLeir  whole  territory  away.  Yet  the  leading  chap. 
men,  Pico,  Alvarado,  Castro,  were  native  Cali-  _.^_ 
fornians.  1846. 

Eleven  years  had  wrought  wonders.  The 
priestly  rule  was  entirely  overthrown.  The 
Christian  Indians  had  either  relapsed  into  pa- 
ganism, or,  by  intermarriages  with  soldiers  and 
sailors,  formed  the  basis  of  a  mixed  race  that 
still  survives.  It  was  estimated,  by  Larkin, 
that  there  were  fifteen  thousand  people  in  Up- 
per California  in  1846,  exclusive  of  Indians. 
Of  that  number,  perhaps  two  thousand  were 
from  the  United  States.  They  had  come  from 
over  the  mountains,  had  tarried  from  vessels 
that  stopped  at  the  various  harbors,  or  had 
drifted  from  the  Columbia  River  region.  Trap- 
pers retiring  from  their  hardy  pursuits  had 
taken  up  their  residence  in  valleys  that  suited 
their  fancy,  far  away  from  points  of  contact 
with  the  Mexican  settlers,  and  in  portions  of 
the  country  that  the  missionaries  had  neglected. 

The  people  that  made  up  the  body  of  the 
population  were  dashing  and  careless,  fond  of 
fandangoes,  always  ready  for  a  dance,  making 
the  most  of  their  religious  holidays  with  bull- 
fights and  bear-baitings,  and  almost  universally 
given  to  gambling.  Monte  was  their  favorite 
o-ame,  in  which  all  classes,  and  men  and  women 
alike,  engaged.  They  accepted  their  good 
fortune  without  any  lively  demonstrations  of 


15-4  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALTFORlSriA. 

CHAP,  joy,  and  their  losses  did  not  disturb  tlieir  com- 
,,_^__  posure  of  mind.     On  Sunday  afternoons,  devo- 
1840.   tions  being  ended,  tliey  generally  surrendered 
themselves  to  some  sort  of  gay  festivity. 

There  were  few  such  riders  in  the  world. 
Wild  horses,  though  every  one  had  his  claim- 
ant, scoured  the  plains  in  droves,  and  those  that 
were  accounted  tame  would  seem  to  any  other 
people  quite  unbroken.  When  a  gentleman 
set  out  on  a  journey,  he  took  a  driv^er  and  a 
drove  of  horses  with  him.  As  one  animal 
wearied  of  the  saddle,  another  was  made  to 
bear  the  burden.  In  this  way  a  hasty  rider 
would  accomplish  his  hundred  miles  a  day.  If 
a  horse  gave  out  on  the  road,  he  was  turned 
loose  to  find  his  way  home  at  his  leisure.  His 
owner's  name  was  branded  on  his  flank ;  there 
was  little  dans-er  of  his  beino;  lost ;  but  of  his 
being  stolen  there  was  great  danger,  since  with 
the  Indian,  relapsed  into  barbarism,  horse  steal- 
ing was  a  passion. 

The  child,  at  a  very  early  age,  was  taught 
to  ride  at  a  breakneck  pace,  and  with  the  use 
of  the  lariat  every  one  was  dexterous. 

The  saddle  was  an  elaborate  piece  of  work- 
manship. The  stirrups  were  of  wood,  and 
set  well  back  ;  the  skirts  were  broad,  and 
pierced  for  strips  of  raw-hide  with  whicli  to 
lash  fast  the  blankets  and  bao-crasre  of  the  rider. 
It  was  fastened  very  tightly  by  a  wide  girth, 


EXCELLENT   HORSEME^\  155 

without  the  aid  of  a  buckle,  and  in  a  manner  chap. 
that  made  slipping  or  turning  impossible.  J_^_, 
Over  its  high  pommel  was  coiled  the  inevitable  184G. 
lasso.  The  bridle,  like  the  lasso,  was  of  braided 
rawhide.  To  the  bit  was  attached  a  cruelly 
long  spur,  running  back  upon  the  beast's 
tongue,  so  that  the  slightest  pull  at  the  bridle 
compelled  obedience  without  much  reference  to 
the  original  intentions  of  the  brute.  He  soon 
learned  to  take  his  cue  from  the  weight  of  the 
rein  upon  his  neck,  and  the  horseman  dashed 
along  the  highway,  generally  at  fall  gallop, 
with  loose  reins.  A  poor  man  might  own  a 
dozen  horses,  but  he  was  rich  who  was  sup- 
plied with  the  complete  furniture  for  one. 
When  overtaken  by  night  on  the  road,  the 
saddle  was  his  pillow ;  the  blankets,  unrolled 
from  the  bundles  that  they  were  as  they  dan- 
gled from  it,  were  bedding  and  covering  enough 
in  so  mild  a  climate ;  and  the  ever-useful  lasso 
limited  the  range  of  the  horse,  as  he  fed  on  the 
wild  oats  of  the  valley. 

It  was  not  until  the  Indians  discovered  how 
delicate  and  savory  I'oast  horse-flesh  was,  that 
the  tribe  of  horse-thieves  sprang  into  exist- 
ence, but  then  they  grew  with  astonishing  rapid- 
ity, till  they  were  the  terror  of  all  the  country. 
Their  chief  haunts  were  the  valleys  of  the  San 
Joaquin  and  its  tributaries.  Temperate  writers 
estimate  that  from  five  thousand  to  ten  thou- 


156  THE   inSTORY    OF   CALIFOENIA. 

CHAP,  sand  horses  were  stolen  and  eaten  in  the  twenty 
■,  years   l;ctweeu  1827  and  1847.      It  is  impossi- 

1846.  ble  to  conceive  how  frightful  the  nuisance  was, 
unless  we  bear  in  mind  how  large  a  proportion 
of  the  male  population  jingled  immense  spurs  at 
their  heels  perpetually,  and  that,  unhorsed,  the 
Californian  considered  himself  but  half  a  man. 
Their  houses  were  one  story  high,  generally 
built  of  large  unburned  biicks,  or  adol^es, 
floored  with  clay,  and  roofed  with  tiles.  The 
pleasures  of  the  table  were  not  foremost  in 
their  thoughts.  The  supply  of  flour  for  the 
day  was  ground  in  hand-mills  each  morning 
from  the  grain.  Tortillas — simply  thin  cakes 
of  meal  beaten  by  hand  and  leaked  before 
the  fire — figured  at  every  meal.  Beans  were 
a  staple  article  of  diet.  Ked  pepper  entered 
into  the  composition  of  every  cooked  dish,  and, 
like  onions,  were  cultivated  in  every  garden. 
The  table-drink  Avas  generally  water.  The 
use  of  milk  would  have  implied  tame  cattle  and 
work,  so  its  presence  was  I'are.  The  poorest 
householder  had  plenty  of  beef  in  Ins  pot. 
The  butchered  animal  was  hung  up  under  the 
shade  of  the  oak,  close  by  the  house.  In  the 
clear,  dry  air,  there  was  no  risk  of  its  tainting 
before  the  knife  had  cut  off,  day  by  day,  the 
tenderer  parts  for  the  family,  and  the  tougher 
for  the  troops  of  dogs  that  stretched  themselves 
lazily  in  the  sun. 


THEIR   CATTLE.  157 

Tlie  cattle  introduced  by  Governor  Portald,  chap. 

•  XIII 

and  Father  Junipero  had  increased  beyond  all 
calculation.  They  formed  the  principal  wealth  1846. 
of  the  missions  at  one  time,  and  for  leagues 
the  higher  grounds  were  spotted  with  bullocks, 
while  the  valleys,  for  acre  upon  acre,  waved 
with  growing  grain.  There  was  food  enough 
for  all. 

Every  year  all  the  cattle  belonging  to  one 
party  were  gathered  to  a  rodeo  ;  that  is,  driven 
together  and  passed  through  a  corral  or  pen, 
where  they  were  branded  with  the  owner's 
mark,  or  afc  least  old  brands  inspected,  and 
other  necessary  operations  were  performed  upon 
the  calves.  It  was  always  a  merry  occasion, 
beautifully  adapted  for  the  display  of  horseman- 
ship in  capturing  and  controlling  the  wild  cat- 
tle ;  and,  both  because  of  its  own  charms,  and 
to  prevent  the  branding  of  other  folks'  cattle, 
the  neighbors  generally  came  in  to  share  its 
sports.  Every  cattle-owner  of  course  had  his 
special  brand,  and  his  marking-iron  was  de- 
posited with  the  alcalde  of  the  district. 

The  mission  gardens  were  hedged  in  with 
willows — at  the  south,  with  rows  of  the  gigan- 
tic cactus.  Fruit-trees  were  planted  about  the 
missions  very  generally.  Shade-trees  in  the 
vicinity  of  houses  were  never  in  favor,  but  long 
alamedas^  or  shaded  walks  for  the  convenience 
of  distant  worshippers  along  the  line  of  travel 


158  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  from  the  pueblos  to  tlie  churclies,  were  pretty 

_^_^  features  of  the  landscape. 

1840.  Both  sexes  were  excessively  fond  of  dress, 
but  tliey  found  little  opportunity  to  humor 
their  fancy  in  that  matter.  They  had  few  of 
the  luxuries  of  life,  however  great  their  wealth 
might  be.  With  the  extortionate  impost  du- 
ties, few  elegancies  were  imported,  but  for  the 
finery  that  did  arrive  they  paid  enonuous 
prices. 

Fix)m  Mexican  ports  they  got  rice,  sugar, 
silk,  scarfs,  and  woollen  shawls,  shoes,  saddles, 
and  some  Ens-lish  and  American  ecoods.     Be- 

1822.  fore  1822,  they  exported  little  except  a  few 
hides,  some  tallow,  a  trifle  of  wine,  and  pei-haps 
some  wheat.  But  in  that  year  a  Yankee  ship 
appeared  with  a  cargo  of  notions,  and  she 
proved  the  pioneer  of  a  trade  that  made  many 
a  Bostonian  rich,  that  bewitched  the  Califor- 
niaus  of  both  sexes,  and  put  the  local  authori- 
ties in  excellent  humor,  for  they  taxed  customs 
generously,  and  seldom  or  never  sent  a  shilling 
of  what  was  collected  to  the  Mexican  Govern- 
ment. 

These  Boston  traders  kept  one  or  two  ves- 
sels on  the  coast,  which  took  out  a  coasting 
license  and  sailed  from  port  to  j^oi-t  between 
San  Diego,  where  the  hide-liouses  were,  and 
San  Francisco,  near  which  were  the  most 
northern  missions.     They  took   in   any  thing 


STEANGEES   DROPPING    IN.  159 

that  was  for  sale,  but  chiefly  hides  and  tallow,   chap. 

■  XIII 

and  paid  for  them,  from  the  well-appointed  ,„^_^^_^ 
"store"  on  board,  where  the  more  tempting  i836. 
goods  were  displayed  in  show-cases.  Hats, 
hoes,  shoes,  shovels,  calico,  crockery,  ribbons, 
hardware,  groceries,  furniture — every  thing,  in 
short,  that  a  Californian  coveted,  or  which  Lis 
taste  could  be  educated  to  covet — was  for  sale 
on  board.  Two  or  three  times  a  year  the  ships 
dropped  down  to  San  Diego  and  stored  their 
hides.  Finally,  one  of  them  would  be  quite 
loaded  and  dispatched  for  Boston,  the  other 
continuing  the  collection  until  a  new  ship  with 
fresh  supplies  of  "  notions"  arrived,  to  keep  her 
company  in  coasting  until  her  own  time  came  to 
be  left  alone.  It  was  in  one  of  these  hide-ships 
that  Richard  H.  Dana  spent  his  two  years  he- 
fore  the  mast^  of  which  he  wrote  so  readable 
and  still  popular  an  account. 

The  administration  of  justice  was  a  veiy  simple 
matter.  They  had  no  written  statutes.  Equity 
was  the  law  which  the  magistrates  Avere  expect- 
ed, if  honest,  to  enforce.  All  minor  offences  and 
actions,  involving  less  than  one  hundred  dol- 
lars, were  examined  and  determined  by  the 
alcalde.  If  the  offence  were  great  or  the  pen- 
alty capital,  he  made  a  preliminary  examination, 
and  sent  the  convicted  party  to  the  first  judge 
of  the  district.  If  an  action  involved  more  than 
one  hundred  dollars  it .  was  tried  by  the  first 


160  THE    HISTORY    OF    CALIFOENIA. 

c'lAP.  judge,  and  carried  on  ap2:»eal  to  tlie  prefect  or 
J_^_  governor.  Either  party  might  demand  a  jury, 
1840.  which  generally  consisted  of  three  or  five  per- 
sons. "When  honest  men  were  on  the  bench, 
they  came* to  the  substance  of  the  thing  in  dis- 
pute with  great  promptness,  and  the  law  had 
no  delay.  When  rogues  held  the  balances,  they 
suited  themselves  without  much  interference, 
and  Justice  was  dumb  as  well  as  blind ;  for  it 
was  a  trait  of  California  character  that  when  an 
appeal  had  been  taken  to  the  law,  its  decisions 
were  borne  with  patience  and  in  quietness. 

The  New  England  whale-ships,  famous  al- 
ways for  spying  out  good  harbors  in  queer 
out-of-the-way  places,  were  early  accustomed  to 
look  in  at  San  Francisco  and  Montere}^ ;  and 
not  a  few  fine  farms  in  the  country  were  in 
the  hands  of  whalers,  who  had  given  up  their 
"lay"  on  board,  stopped  ashore,  taken  wives 
at  least  half  Indian,  neglected  to  learn  the 
Spanish  language,  and  l)rought  up  their  large 
families  on  frijoles  and  tortillas  in  adobe 
houses. 

After  1840,  immigrants  from  over  the  plains 
had  begun  to  settle  in  the  Sacramento  Valley, 
getting  grants  for  the  asking  from  the  Govern- 
ment, or  taking,  by  consent,  a  slice  out  of  some 
early  settler's  broad  claim.  All  these  brought 
wdth  them  the  impression — and  most  of  the 
Englishmen  in  California  assumed  the  same — 


STEAISTGERS   DROPPIT\^G    IN.  101 

that  in  a  few  years  tlie  region  would  all  be  chap 
under  the  flag  of  the  American  Union, 

They  did  not,  like  the  Puritans,  however,  i846. 
plant  first  a  church,  and  then  a  school-house. 
The  church  they  quite  forgot ;  and  the  only 
schools,  outside  of  the  decaying  missions,  were 
poor  apologies  for  them,  and  scarcely  worth 
the  name,  where  it  was  not  pretended  to  teach 
much  beyond  reading  and  writing.  Nor  were 
those  accomplishments  of  much  account  with 
the  natives,  or  greatly  practised  by  the  immi- 
grants. 

11 


162  THE   HISTORY   OF   CALIFOllNIA. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

FREMONT  AND  THE  BEAR-PARTY  REVOLUTION. 

CHAP.  We  left  Castro  diverted  fi-om  all  Lis  schemes 
J^  ■  against  the  government  of  Pico,  which  he  had 
184G.  helped  to  establish,  by  the  apparition  of  John 
Marcb.  Qjjj^i-ieg  Fremont  from  over  the  plains.  This 
young  pathfinder,  then  a  brevet  captain  in  the 
corps  of  United  States  Topographical  Engineers, 
had  been  dispatched,  in  the  spring  of  1845,  on 
a  third  tour  of  exploration  across  the  continent, 
and  especially  charged  to  discover  a  better  route 
from  the  western  l)ase  of  tlie  Rocky  Mountains 
to  the  mouth  of  the  Columbia  lliver.  He  ar- 
rived on  the  frontier  of  California  early  in 
March,  1846,  prudently  halted  his  company, 
then  consisting  of  sixty-two  men,  some  hundred 
miles  away  from  Monterey,  and  proceeded  alone 
to  General  Castro's  liead-quarters.  His  eri'and 
was,  to  obtain  permission  to  take  his  company 
to  the  valley  of  the  San  Joaquin,  where  there 
was  game  for  his  men,  grass  for  his  horses,  and 
no  inhabitants  to  be  molested  by  his  presence. 


FREMONT   AISTD    HIS    EXPLORERS.  163 

Castro  received  liira  witli  courtesy,  and  told  chap. 
him  to  go  wherever  he  pleased — the  vrhole 
coimtiy  was  free  to  him.  Fremont  suggested  i846. 
tiiat  it  would  be  pleasant  to  have  the  permis- 
sion put  in  writing,  but  Castro  was  quite  too 
" sick"  for  the  effort ;  so  he  gave  "the  word  of 
a  Mexican  soldier,  which  was  his  bond."  Fre- 
mont returned  to  his  men,  who  at  once  broke 
up  camp  to  remove  to  the  San  Joaquin  Valley. 

Castro,  upon  reflection,  seems  to  have  felt 
that  now  was  the  coveted  opportunity  to  distin- 
guish himself  with  the  Government  of  Mexico, 
which,  smarting-  under  the  recent  loss  of  Texas, 
could  have  no  excess  of  aftection  for  the  Ameri- 
cans. He  was  speedily  in  his  saddle,  and  spur- 
ring about  the  country,  arousing  the  Californians 
to  expel  the  strangers.  His  work  sped  bravely; 
in  a  few  days  he  had  raised  a  company  of  three 
hundred  men.  He  now  sent  word  to  Fremont 
to  quit  the  country  at  once,  adding  also  a  threat 
that  if  the  orders  were  not  complied  with,  he 
would  attack  his  company,  and  devote  every 
man  among  them  to  destruction.  For  his  sud- 
den change  of  demeanor  he  had  the  decency  to 
plead  fresh  instructions  from  Mexico. 

Fremont  was  not  entirely  unprepared  for  the 
general's  treachery,  having  been  posted  from 
Consul  Larkin,  of  Monterey,  as  to  the  value  of 
"the  Mexican  soldier's  word."  He  sent  back 
an  oral  message  that  he  would  hold  no  corre- 


164  THE   HISTOEY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

(HAP.  spondeDce  witli  a  mau  who  had  so  shamefully 
_,  broken  his  faith,  aud  that  he  should  go  when 
184G.  he  was  ready.  He  then  took  his  position  on 
the  "  Hawk's  Peak,"  a  height  overlooking  Mon- 
terey from  a  distance  of  some  thirty  miles,  in- 
trenched it,  and  raised  the  American  flag. 

His  men  were  exhausted  with  their  long 
tramp  through  the  deserts  aud  over  the  moun- 
tains. They  needed  repose  and  refi*eshment ; 
but  if  these  were  not  to  be  had,  they  were 
quite  ready  to  defend  themselves  to  the  last. 
Secretaiy  Marcy,  in  his  report  to  the  President, 
was  careful  to  insist  that  there  was  not  in  the 
compau)^  an  officer  or  soldier  of  the  United 
States  Army.  They  were  scientific  explorers, 
rough,  hardy  pathfinders — reliable  in  any  emer- 
gency— true  as  steel.  Six  of  the  number  were 
Delaware  Indians — the  leader's  body-guard. 
Kit  Cai'son  was  there,  and  others  worthy  to 
keep  his  company.  Each  was  armed  with  a 
knife,  a  tomahawk,  two  pistols,  and  a  rifle — not 
a  very  desirable  company  to  attack,  and  evi- 
dently one  not  to  be  frightened  out  of  its  self- 
possession. 

Castro  manceuvred  his  dashing  cavalry  for 
three  days  in  full  sight.  He  displayed  a  fair 
show  of  infantry,  too,  and,  through  theii* 
glasses,  the  Americans  saw  a  body  of  artillery 
getting  field-pieces  in  place.  He  issued  re- 
peated   bulletins    about    the    "  foreign    vaga- 


INHOSPITABLE    RECEPTION    OF    FPvEMONT.  1C5 

bonds,"  and  several  times  inspired  his  cavalry  en  a  p. 
to  charge :  they  charged  galhmtly,  but  always  _^_ 
wheeled  before  coming  within  bullet-reach,  ap-    1846. 
parently  concluding  that,  for  every  rifle  before 
them,  there  would  be  an  empty  saddle  in  their 
ranks  ;  and  native  Californians  wisely  held  that 
it  were  a  foolish  thing  for  such  good  riders  to 
be  permanently  unhorsed.     Then  Castro  him- 
self must  have  considered  that  an  actual  attack 
would  array  against  him  all  the  foreign  settlers 
of  the  valley.      If  numbers  and  fierce  demon- 
strations would  send  the  adventurers  flying  out. 
of  the  country,  his  purpose  would  be  gained. 
If  not,  he  could  afford  to  keep  on  manoeuvring 
and  writing  proclamations.     Perhaps  the  little 
band  would  be  foolhardy  enough  to  make  an 
assault  upon  their  persecutors ;  in  that  case  he 
could  run.     So  really  there  was  nothing  to  be 
lost  by  Fabianism. 

It  was  dull  sport  to  Fremont,  however.  He 
had  been  charged  on  leaving  home  to  provoke 
no  hostilities  with  the  Mexicans,  and  he  was 
impatient  at  this  detention  from  his  legitimate 
work.  So  on  the  fourth  day,  seeiug  no  in- 
creas-sd  prospect  of  an  attack,  his  party  broke 
up  their  camp  and  leisurely  moved  off  north- 
ward, toward  Oregon.  Castro,  delighted  with 
so  easy  an  opportunity  to  herald  a  victory,  was 
careful  not  to  follow. 

Fremont  had  passed  the  Oregon  border,  and 


166  THE   HISTOEY   OF   CALIFOENIA. 

CHAP,  by  the  9th  of  May  was  on  the  northern  shore 
'^^'  of  the  Greater  Klamath  Lake.  Here  word  was 
1840.  brought  him  that  an  officer  of  the  United  States 
May.  ^j.j-Qy  ^vith  dispatches  was  on  his  trail.  In- 
stantly, with  nine  men,  he  turned  l)ack  upon 
his  track  to  find  the  unknown  messenger,  and 
fortunately  came  upon  him  the  next  evening. 
The  stranger  was  Lieutenant  Gillespie,  of  the 
Army,  who  had  left  Washington  the  Novem- 
ber previous,  had  crossed  the  continent  fi'om 
Vera  Cruz  to  Mazatlan,  arrived  at  Monterey  in 
a  United  States  sloop-of  war,  and  thence  has- 
tened up  the  Sacramento  Valley  to  overtake  the 
explorers.  If  the  Mexicans  had  arrested  and 
searched  him,  as  the  threatening  relations  of 
the  two  republics  made  not  unlikely,  they 
would  have  found  no  suspicious  papers  ujJon 
his  person.  All  that  he  bore  was  a  letter  from 
the  Secretary  of  State,  commending  the  bearer 
to  Fremont's  good  offices,  and  some  private  let- 
ters from  the  captain's  distant  family.  There  was 
not  a  word  of  politics  in  them,  or  of  war  with 
Mexico,  or  of  the  future  of  California ;  but 
there  were  some  expressions  in  a  letter  fi'om 
Colonel  Benton  that  the  old  senator's  son-in- 
law  studied  with  extraordinary  diligence.  No 
doubt  the  oral  communications  of  Gillespie 
helped  to  draw  from  them  a  deeper  significance 
than  the  words  conveyed  on  the  fii'st  reading. 


167 

At  an)^  rate  a  new  resolution  was  taken  before  chap. 
the  last  of  the  party  had  retired  for  the  night.     ,^_ 

After  the  excitement  of  the  day,  for  in  the  i846, 
life  of  such  Wanderers  there  is  no  such  excite-  ^^' 
ment  as  news  from  home,  the  usual  vigilance  ; 

was  relaxed,  and  all  slept  soundly  until  awaked 
by  a  cry  from  Kit  Carson.  The  Indians  had 
broken  into  their  camp  ;  Lajeunesse,  one  of  Fre-  I 

mont's  most  devoted  adherents,  .was  uttering  j 

his  death-groan  ;  and  three  of  his  trusty  Dela.  / 

wares  were  killed  before  the  assassins  could  be 
driven  back  and  dispersed. 

Whether  Castro  really  had  tampered  with 
the  natives,  as  was  then  thought,  or  whether, 
as  was  suspected  afterwards,  the  hot  friends  of 
a  scheme  on  foot  to  give  to  England  the  protec- 
torate of  California,  had  stimulated  the  savages 
to  violence,  is  not  known;  but  the  resolution 
of  the  night  before  was  now  irrevocable.  Fre- 
mont determined  to  become  the  pursuer  rather 
than  the  pursued,  to  turn  upon  the  faithless 
foe,  and  revolutionize  the  Government. 

This  would  have  been  a  hazardous  course  for 
the  reputation  at  home  of  one  sent  out  on  a 
scientific  errand,  unlessy  either  in  his  secret  in- 
structions before  starting,  or  in  the  advices  con- 
veyed by  Lieutenant  Gillespie,  he  was  assured 
that  a  successful  indiscretion  of  the  sort  would 
be  acceptable  to  his  Government.  As  to  the 
precise  plan  that  he  adopted,  there  is  no  doubt 


168  '  THE   HISTOEY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CFiAP.  tliat  he  consulted  Ms  own  judgment  alone.    But 
there  is  abundant  circumstantial  evidence  that 

1846.  he  was  given  to  understand  that  any  defensible 
method  of  gaining  California  to  the  Union 
would  be  acceptable.  President  Polk's  Admin- 
istration had  taken  the  position  that  the  north- 
ern Oregon  boundary  was  some  nine  degrees 
higher  than  Great  Britain  conceded.  "  Fifty- 
four  forty,  or  fight,"  was  a  party  watchword  for 
a  while ;  yet  when  the  issue  was  pressed,  the 
forty-ninth  parallel  of  latitude  was  accepted  as 
the  boundary,  and  the  fighting  was  deemed 
unwise.  It  would  atone  for  this  ungracious  is- 
sue, if  by  an  apparent  accident,  or  at  least  with- 
out any  interposition  of  our  Government,  the 
whole  of  California  should  tender  itself  as  the 
next  subject  of  annexation  to  the  growing  Re- 
public, whose  manifest  destiny,  as  every  stump 
speaker  and  l^ar-room  politician  now  clearly 
saw,  required  the  absorption  of  all  that  was 
southward  down  to  the  tropic  of  Cancer. 

A  hint  was  enough  for  one  so  ambitious  as 
Fremont,  and  if  he  was  not  instructed,  he  cer- 
tainly was  most  fortunate  in  his  instincts.  A 
different  issue  to  the  revolution  he  inaugurated 
might  have  overwhelmed  him  with  reproach. 
As  it  resulted,  he  had  the  perfect  and  flattering 
indorsement  of  tlie  Secretary  of  State.  The 
South  was  delisihted  "v^dth  the  new  area  for 
slavery  that  the  conquest  opened,  and  the  North, 


FREMONT   ATTEMPTS    A    REVOLUTION".  169 

admiring  tLe  gallantry  of  the  conqueror,  lay  all  chap 
the  blame  of  "  plotting  to  rob  Mexico "  on  the 
shoulders  of  the  Administration,  whose  instiiic-    1846. 
tions  they  contended  that  he  obeyed.  ^^' 

But  the  country  was  not  conquered  yet. 
There  was  a  deal  of  proclaiming,  manoeuvringj 
marching,  and  even  some  fighting  to  do  before 
the  finest  country  in  the  world  would  drop  fi'om 
the  impotent  hand  of  "  the  sick  man,  Mexico," 
into  the  palm  of  the  United  American  States. 

Fremont  returned  with  his  party  to  the  Val- 
ley of  the  Sacramento,  and  encamped  at  the 
Buttes,  near  the  mouth  of  tlie  Feather  River. 
He  found  the  scattered  settlers  in  a  state  of 
high  alarm.  They  had  put  the  worst  interpre- 
tations upon  Castro's  proclamations,  and  did 
not  doubt  that  the  time  had  come  when  they 
must  either  be  driven  out,  or  defy  the  authori- 
ties of  the  land  and  overawe  them. 

While  the  excitement  was  at  its  height,  an 
Indian  from  below  told  the  story  that  he  had 
seen  between  two  and  three  hundred  armed 
men  advancing  up  the  valley.  This  alarming 
tidings  was  spread  to  the  remotest  settlements 
as  fast  as  the  swiftest  riders  could  carry  it,  and 
instinctively  the  settlers  rallied  to  the  camp  of 
Fremont.  There  the  foundation  of  the  story 
that  aroused  them  was  soon  learned.  Castro 
had  ordered  Lieutenant  De  Arce,  commandant 
of  the  garrison  at  Sonoma,  to  remove  a  large 


170  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CTiAP.  number  of  Government  horses  from  the  Mission 
J_^^  of  San  Rafael,  on  the  north  side  of  San  Fran- 
1846.   cisco  Bay,  to  Santa  Clara,  at  its  southern  ex- 
tremity.    To  accomplish  this,  De  Arce,  with  a 
guard  of  fourteen  men,  ascended  the  Sacramento 
Valley  to    New   Helvetia,   the    nearest   point 
where  the  horses  could  safely  swim  the  river. 
The  Indian  had  seen  the  horses  and  the  guard, 
and  he  presumed  the  rest.     But  the  bearer  of 
the  true  version  added  that  he  had  conversed 
with  De  Arce,  who  told  hira  that  Cnstro  wanted 
the  horses  to  mount  a  battalion  of  two  hundred 
men   and   expel  the  settlers.     It  was  deemed 
wise  to  frustrate  this  attempt  without  waiting 
for    any   portion   of    it   to    be    accomplished. 
Twelve   volunteers,    under    command   of    Mr. 
Merritt,  the  eldest  of  their  number,  were  dis- 
patched to  overtake  De  Arce.     On  the  lltli  of 
June.    June  they  surprised  the  object  of  their  pursuit, 
gave  to  each  of  the  guard  a  horse  to  ride  home 
with,  and  charged  De  Arce  to  report  to  Castro 
that  if  he  wished  the  rest  of  the  drove  he  must 
come   and   take  them.      Merritt's  party   then 
marched  on  to  Sonoma,  and  at  daybreak  of  the 
,         15th  entered  and  captured  that  military  post, 
I        of  which  the  honest  spoils — they  took  no  other 
— were  nine  brass  cannon  and  two  hundred  and 
fifty  stands  of  arms.     They  also  made  prisoners 
General  Vallejo  and  •  two  other  persons  of  con- 
/~),^^^,    sideration  in  the  province,  and   sent  them  off 


THE   BEAR    PARTY.  ITl 

under  an  escort  for  safe  keeping  to  Sutter's  Fort  chap. 

at  New  Helv^etia.  -l-^-l- 

Eighteen  men,  under  William  B.  Ide  (a  na-    i84g. 

T 

tiv(i  of  New  England,  and  tlien  but  one  year 
resident  in  the  country),  were  left  in  Sonoma 
as  a  garrison,  but,  as  tlie  news  spread,  the  force 
was  soon  increased  to  forty, 

Castro  heard  of  these  presumptuous  doings, 
and  on  the  1 7th  fulminated  a  proclamation  from 
his  head-quarters  at  Santa  Clara.  He  called 
upon  his  fellow-citizens,  in  the  name  of  their 
religion,  liberty,  and  independence,  to  rise  irre- 
sistibly for  retribution  upon  the  contemptible 
and  daring  invaders. 

On  the  following  day,  Mr.  Ide,  the  garrison 
consenting,  issued  his  proclamation — crude  in 
its  style,  and  in  its  allegations  quite  unsup- 
ported by  facts,  yet  commendably  explicit  and 
direct — to  all  persons  in  the  district  of  Sonoma, 
requesting  them  to  remain  at  peace  and  follow 
their  rightful  occupations,  without  fear  of  mo- 
lestation. The  insurgents,  so  the  proclamation 
declared,  had  been  invited  to  the  country  under 
promise  of  lands  to  settle  on,  and  a  republican 
government.  But  these  promises  (who  made 
them  does  not  appear)  were  violated.  They 
were  denied  the  privilege  of  either  buying  or 
renting  lands.  Instead  of  a  republic  they  were 
treated  to  a  military  despotism,  and  were 
threatened    with    extermination.      They    had 


172  THE   HISTOBY   OF   CALEFOKinA. 

CHAP,  risen  for  self-protection,  and  the  overthrow  of 

XIV 

,_^  a  government  that  had  seized  the  property  of 
1846.  the  missions  for  its  individual  ao-arandizement 
and  "  had  ruined  and  shamefidly  oppressed  the 
laboring  people."  To  assist  in  establishing  and 
perpetuating  a  repul^liean  government,  all  peace- 
able and  good  citizens  of  California  were  in- 
vited to  repair  to  the  camp  at  Sonoma  without 
delay. 

Ide's  proclamation,  if  not  couched  in  more  su- 
perb language  than  Castro's,  drew  bettei",  and  his 
camp  soon  had  men  enough  to  spare  a  party  to 
go  out  and  break  up  a  gang  of  desperadoes, 
under  one  Padilla,  who  had  biTitally  tortured 
to  death  two  young  men  captured  on  their  way 
to  Bodeo-a.  Lieutenant  Ford  commanded  this 
expedition,  which  mustered  twenty-one  men. 
He  came  upon  the  enemy  between  Santa  Rosa 
'^'  and  San  Rafael,  and  found  them  far  stronger 
than  he  had  anticipated,  they  having  been  re-en- 
forced by  Captain  Te  la  Torre,  and  numbering 
now  eighty-six  j)ersons.  Ford  engaged  them, 
killed  eight,  Avounded  two,  set  the  rest  into  pre- 
cipitate retreat,  and,  without  loss  to  his  own 
party,  returned  to  Sonoma. 

The  party  at  Sonoma  seems  to  have  declared 
an  independent  State,  and  some  say  that  Ide 
wag  elected  governor.  Of  course  a  flag  was 
needed,  and  with  such  rude  appliances  as  were 
at  hand  they  produced  one  whose  like  had  not 


DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE.       173 

been  seen  before.     On  a  sheet  of  cotton  cloth,  chap. 

.    .  XIV. 

with  a  blacking  brush  and  a  pot  of  berry  juice,  _^w 
a  tolerable  likeness  of  a  grizzly  bear  was  painted.  1 846. 
This  was  the  "  bear  flag,"  and  the  party  that 
raised  it  has  gone  into  history  as  the  Bear-Flag 
party.  The  rude  flag  is  still  preserved  as  a 
choice  relic  by  the  California  Society  of  Pioneers, 
and  on  notable  occasions  it  has  been  borne  in 
procession  by  the  society. 

Meanw^hile,  Fremont  was  busy  among  the 
settlers  organizing  a  battalion.  It  was  on  the 
23d  of  June  that  he  heard  at  Sutter's  Fort  that 
Castro  w^as  crossing  the  bay  wdth  two  hundred 
soldiers  to  Ml  upon  Ide's  garrison.  Thirty-six 
hours  later  he  and  his  ninety  riflemen  had  put 
eighty  miles  behind  them,  and  \vere  at  Sonoma, 
but  the  only  enemy  north  of  the  Bay  of  San 
Francisco  was  De  la  Torre's  retreating^  force. 
No  pains  were  spared  to  prevent  their  escape 
from  the  peninsula.  Once  Fremont's  scouts 
fell  in  with  the  fugitives,  killed  or  wounded  •,./ 
five,  and  captured  nine  pieces  of  artillery.  But 
the  main  body,  coming  to  Saucelito,  had  the 
good  fortune  to  find  a  boat  just  arrived.  This  , 
they  seized,  and  so  made  good  their  escape  across 
the  bay — notable  as  the  last  Mexicans  that 
were  on  the  soil  north  of  the  bay,  claiming  it 
for  any  other  Government  than  the  American. 

Fremont  dispatched  a  party  of  ten,  under  B. 
Semple,  to  cross  to  San  Francisco,  to  take  pris- 


174  THE    IIIGrOEY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

OHAP.  oner  the  captain  of  tlie  port,  R.  T.  Ridley,  and 
_^_^  convey  Hni  to   Captain  Sutter's  residence  and 
1846.   fort,  which  was  to  serve  as  a  prison.     The  task 
was  successfully  performed.  Fremont  himself,  ac- 
companied by  Kit  Carson,  Lieutenant  Gillespie, 
and  half  a  score  of  others,  crossed  in  a  launch 
to  the  old  fort  near  the  presidio,  spiked  its  ten 
guns,  and  returned  to  Sonoma,     There,  on  the 
)     July.    5th  of  July,  1846,  he  called    the  whole  force 
(  together,  and  recommended  an  immediate  decla- 

'  ration  of  independence.     All  present  united  to 

make  such  a  declaration,  and  with  the  same 
unanimity  intrusted  to  Fremont  the  direction 
of  affairs.  Thus  the  bear  party  was  absorbed 
into  the  battalion,  whose  roll-call  now  showed 
one  hundred  and  sixty  mounted  riflemen. 

Next  day  the  pursuit  of  Castro  began.  He 
was  understood  to  l^e  intrenched  in  Santa 
Clara  w^ith  four  hundred  men.  To  get  there 
it  was  necessary  to  ascend  the  Sacramento  and 
cross  at  Sutter's  Fort.  The  [)attalion  effected 
the  crossing  only  to  learn  that  Castro  was  re- 
treating towards  Los  Angeles.  To  Los  Ange- 
les then  they  must  follow  him,  four  or  five  hun- 
dred miles  distant  though  it  was.  As  they  were 
just  about  to  move  forward,  news  came  that  the 
flag  of  the  United  States  had  been  raised  by 
the  American  naval  force  at  Monterey,  and 
that  the  American  fleet  would  co-operate  in 
the  effort  to  capture  Castro.     Down  came  the 


DECLAEATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE.        175 

flag  of  independence,  up  went  tlie  stars  and  chap. 
stripes,  and,  rejoicing  that  they  had  the  hxw  as 
well  as  right  on  their  side,  on  they  dashed  south- 
ward. Leaving  Captain  Fremont  on  the  gal- 
lop, we  turn  now  to  the  operations  on  the 
coast. 


176  THE   HISTOilY    OF    CALITOENIA. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

THE  AMERICAN  CONQUEST  OF  CALIFORNIA. 

OHAP.  ^^  ^^^  2d  of  July,  1846,  Commodore  Sloat 
■^^-  arrived,  in  the  United  States  frigate  Savannah^ 
184G.  at  Monterey.  In  tlie  instructions  that  Secretary 
J"^^-  Bancroft  had  given  him,  he  was  charged  to  be 
careful  to  observe  the  relations  of  peace,  unless 
they  vrere  violated  by  Mexico ;  in  that  case,  he 
v^as,  without  further  notice,  to  employ  his  fleet 
— all  told,  it  numbered  one  fiigate  and  five 
smaller  vessels — for  hostile  purposes.  Before 
he  left  Mazatlan  he  had  heard  of  movements 
that  could  scarcely  fail  of  precij)itating  the  two 
republics  into  war.  The  annexation  of  Texas 
had  been  several  months  accomplished  ;  Mexico 
was  boiling  with  indignation  in  view  of  it,  and 
every  movement  of  the  American  Administra- 
tion seemed  to  be  hastening  the  inevitable  col- 
lision. All  this  Commodore  Sloat  hnew ;  but 
he  could  not  kno\v  that  Pi'esident  Polk's  am- 
bassador, Slidell,  had  visited  Mexico,  tendered 
his  offer  of  money  for  a  peaceable  boundary  on 
the  Rio  Grande  and  the  cession  of  California, 


COMMODOEE    SLOAT    OlST   THE    COAST.  ITT 

and  that  the  bribe  had  been  spurned ;  nor  that  chap. 
General  Zachary  Taylor,  in  obedience  to  orders,  _^_ 
had  taken  his  post  at  the  mouth  of  the  Kio    1846. 
Grande;  nor  that,  on  the  11th  of  the  previous 
May,  Mr.  Polk  had  announced  to  Congress,  in 
special  session,  that  the  blood  of  our  own  citi- 
zens had  been  shed  on  our  own  soil ;  nor  that 
Congress   had   promjDtly  responded   that   war 
existed  by  the  act  of  Mexico,  and  voted  men 
and  money  accordingly. 

Sloat  hesitated  what  to  do.  Instructions 
from  Secretary  Bancroft  were  then  on  the  way 
to  him  (dated  May  15,  1846),  charging  him  to 
take  Mazatlan,  Monterey,  and  San  Francisco — 
either  or  all,  as  his  force  would  permit ;  taking 
them,  to  hold  them  at  all  hazards,  encouraging 
the  people  to  self-government  and  neutrality; 
but  of  all  things,  when  peace  should  come  again, 
to  be  sure  that  the  country  were  found  in  pos- 
session of  the  United  States.  Sloat  knew  well 
enough  that  the  conquest  of  California  had 
been  predetermined  at  Washington.  But,  sup- 
pose the  war,  by  some  accident,  averted,  it 
would  be  an  awkward  blunder  if,  by  any  act 
of  his,  the  plans  of  the  Administration  should 
be  revealed  to  the  opposition,  who  were  charg- 
ing, with  great  effect,  at  the  Northeast,  that  the 
President  was  bent  on  waging  a  war  of  con- 
quest and  for  the  acquisition  of  teiTitory,  in 

12 


178  THE    IIISTOKY    OF    CALIFOIIITIA. 

CfTAP.  contravention  of  the  spirit  of  American  institu- 
_2^  ■  tions,  and  in  violation  of  the  popuhar  wishes. 
1846.  Fremont  says  that  Sloat  heard  of  the  doings 
at  Sonoma,  and  of  what  he  had  done,  and  the 
news  determined  him.  Doubtless  it  hastened 
his  determination.  But  there  was  another  ur- 
gent reason  for  speed.  In  the  harbor  of  San 
Bias  lay  Rear-Admiral  Sir  George  Seymour's 
flag-ship,  the  GolVmgwood^  while  the  Savannah 
was  at  Mazatlan,  and  eia;ht  other  British  naval 
vessels  were  on  the  coast,  watching  every  Amer- 
ican movement.  It  was  clear  that  England 
suspected  the  American  designs,  and  counter- 
plotted to  make  the  Californias  her  own.  When 
the  Sava/nnalh  sailed  out  of  Mazatlan,  the  Col- 
lingivood  sailed  from  San  Bias.  Both  sliips 
spread,  every  sail,  and  raced  all  the  way  to 
Monterey.  Tlie  Savannah  was  the  better  sailer 
of  the  two,  and  her  commander  had  time  to 
hear  the  news,  weigh  it  well,  and  deliberately 
choose  his  course,  before  the  duller  craft  round- 
ed the  Point  of  Pines. 

Here,  at  Monterey,  he  learned  how  S2:)ed  the 
project  for  which  Mr.  Forbes,  the  British  vice- 
consul,  had  labored  so  faithfully,  to  put  Califor- 
nia under  British  j)rotection,  where  she  would 
lie  as  an  ample  security  or  equivalent  for  the 
debt  due  in  Mexico  to  British  subjects. 

Mr.  Forbes,  in  April,  had  had  an  interview 
with  Governor  Pico  and  Generals  Castro  and 


BRITISH   PLOTS.  179 

Vallejo,  when  the  scheme  was  partially  dis-  chap. 
cussed.  It  contemplated  a  fresh  declaration  of  _.^_1, 
the  independence  of  California,  and  an  appeal  to  1846. 
Great  Britain  for  protection.  A  British  naval 
force  was  to  be  convenient  to  I'espond  to  the 
call.  Mexico  would  be  easily  appeased,  for 
California  was  but  a  troublesome  province,  and 
her  enemy,  the  United  States,  would  thus  be 
cheated  out  of  the  principal  prize  that  made 
war  acceptable  to  her.  Of  all  this,  which  was 
concealed  from  the  American  people  in  Califor- 
nia, intimations  had  reached  our  Government, 
.through  the  watchfulness  of  its  consul  at  Mon- 
terey,  Thomas  O.  Larkin.  From  him  Commo- 
dore Sloat  probably  learned  that  part  of  the 
scheme  was  to  plant  a  colony  of  Irishmen  in 
the  Valley  of  San  Joaquin,  and  that  Macnamara, 
an  Irish  Catholic  priest,  had  petitioned  the 
Mexican  Government  for  large  grants  of  lands 
around  the  bays  of  San  Francisco  and  Monterey, 
at  Santa  Barbara,  and  along  the  San  Joaquin. 
Tempted  by  the  double  object  of  spreading 
their  religion  and  by  possession  excluding  the 
Americans,  Mexico  readily  granted,  not  all  that 
Macnamara  asked,  but  three  thousand  square 
leagues  in  the  San  Joaquin  Valley,  which  was 
enough  for  his  purpose.  To  be  perfected,  the 
patent  only  needed  the  signature  of  Governor 
Pico. 

Upon  information  of  these  British  plots,  Mr. 


180  THE    mSTORY    OF    CALIFOENIA. 

^         GifAP.  Marcy,  Sscretary  of  War,  had  given  oral  instmc- 
'  ^v-l '  tions,  through  LieiiteDant  Gillespie,  to  Fremont, 

1846.  that  made  him  nothing  loth  to  postpone  his 
scientific  explorations  when  Castro  blocked  his 
way,  and  turn  back,  as  we  have  seen,  fi'om  the 
frontier  of  Oregon,  to  assist  the  menaced  Ameri- 
can settlers  in  the  Sacramento  Valley.  George 
Bancroft,  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  in  possession  of 
the  same  facts,  had  charged  the  commander  of  the 
Pacific  Squadron  not  to  w^ait  for  official  informa- 
tion of  the  declaration  of  Avar,  but  at  the  first 
news  of  it  to  go  in  and  possess  California. 

In  view  of  all  these  facts.  Commodore  Sloat,- 
July  7.  on  the  7th  of  July,  sent  Captain  Mervine  and 
two  hundred  and  fifty  marines  and  seamen  on 
shore  to  hoist  the  American  flag  over  Monte- 
rey. As  the  stars  and  stripes  were  run  up,  the 
troops  and  the  people  cheered,  and  all  the  ship- 
ping in  the  harbor  saluted  it  with  a  display  of 
flags  and  twenty-one  guns.  A  proclamation  was 
then  read,  of  which  copies  in  Spanish  and  Eng- 
lish were  posted  about  the  town. 

This  proclamation  declared  California  hence- 
forth a  portion  of  the  United  States.  The  civil 
and  religious  rights  of  such  of  its  inhabitants  as 
chose  to  remain  citizens  would  be  respected  and 
secured.  Those  who  declined  the  high  privi- 
leges of  United  States  citizenship  might  remain, 
so  long  as  they  preserved  a  strict  neutrality  ;  or 
they  might  go,  if  they  chose,  after  ample  time 


THE  BEAE  PARTY  EAISES  THE  AlMEEICATir  FLAG.     181 

had  been  afforded  them  to  dispose  of  their  pro-  chap. 


XV. 


perty.     The  titles  to  real  estate,  the  administra- 
tion of  justice,  the  property  of  the  clergy,  were    1846, 
to  remain  just  as  they  were  found,  and  no  pri- 
vate property  was  to  he  taken  for  the  use  of 
the  ships  or  soldiers,  without  just  compensation. 

The  day  preceding  this  notable  event,  Com- 
modore Sloat  had  dispatched  a  messenger  to 
San  Francisco,  requesting  Commander  Mont- 
gomery, of  the  United  States  sloopof-war  Ports- 
mouthy  to  raise  the  flag,  if  he  had  force  enough 
to  warrant  it.  On  the  8th,  Montgomery  landed 
with  seventy  sailors  and  marines,  took  posses-  * 
sion  of  Yerba  Buena,  and  hoisted  the  Union  'f  ^^ 

standard  on  the  ]3laza.  \       ,  . 

On  the  10th,  Montgomery  sent  an  American  ^ 

flag  to  Sonoma.  The  revolutionists  received  it 
with  joy,  and,  pulling  down  the  bear  flag, 
raised  it  over  the  srarrison.  Sloat  had  ordered 
Purserj^Faimtleroy  to  organize  into  a  company 
of  dragoons  all  volunteers  from  the  shipping 
and  the  shore,  for  the  purpose  of  keeping  the 
roads  open  from  port  to  port  in  the  vicinity. 
On  the  17th  this  corps  left  Monterey  for  the 
San  Juan  Mission,  thirty  miles  to  the  eastward. 

Now  when  Micheltorena  had  recovered  from 
his  fright  at  the  premature  seizure  of  Monterey 
by  Commodore  Jones  in  1842,  he  concealed  all 
his  spare  guns  and  ammunition  at  San  Juan, 
lest  more  Yankees  should  blunder  an  invasion 


182 


THE   HISTORY    OF   CALIFORNIA. 


CHAP,  and  find  tLem.  When,  in  1844,  Vnllejo,  Castro, 
'  ■  and  Alvarado  declared  tlie  independence  of 
1840.  California,  first  of  all  they  made  snre  of  San 
*^"^^'-  Juan.  But  as  they  brought  their  revolution  to 
a  auccessful  issue  without  the  explosion  of 
much  gunpowder,  their  concealed  treasure  ap- 
pears not  to  have  been  disturbed.  To  secure 
these  hidden  arms  was  Purser  Fauntleroy's 
eiTand.  He  made  good  time  on  his  excursion, 
and  was  soon  at  !San  Juan,  but  the  treasure 
was  claimed  by  another  party.  An  liour  before 
his  arrival,  Fremont  and  his  battalion,  riding 
down  from  Sutter's,  had  dashed  into  the  mis- 
sion, taken  possession  without  one  movement 
of  opposition,  and  dragged  to  light  nine  pieces 
of  cannon,  two  hundred  old  muskets,  twenty 
kegs  of  powder,  and  sixty  thousand  pounds 
of  cannon  shot. 

The  purser  had  conveyed  from  Sloat  a  re- 
quest to  Fremont  that  he  would  report  himself 
So  next  day  both  parties  marched  into  Monte- 
rey, and  Fremont  and  Gillespie  early  presented 
themselves  on  board  the  Savannali.  The  com- 
modore was  not  in  the  best  of  humor,  for  he 
had  taken  a  responsibility.  He  had  a  misgiving 
that  he  had  been  re-enactins;  Jones's  blunder  of 
1842.  He  had  been  sixteen  days  in  port;  why 
had  not  Fremont  reported  to  him  at  once  ? 
Fremont  had  known  of  his  rai-ing  the  flag  six 
days  before:  why  had  he  not  conferred  with  him 


FEEMOIS'T    AND    SLOAT.  183 

at  the  earliest  possible  moment?  "I  want  to  chap. 
know,"  said  he,  "  by  what  anthoiity  you  are  act- 
ing. Mr.  Gillespie  has  told  me  nothing.  He 
came  to  Mazatlau,  and  I  sent  him  to  Monterey ; 
but  I  know  nothing.  I  want  to  know  by  what 
authority  you  are  acting." 

The  answer  that  he  got  was  not  of  a  nature 
to  compose  the  commodore's  spirits.  Fremont 
said  he  was  acting  on  his  own  authority.  "  And 
I  have  acted,"  said  the  commodore,  "  upon  the 
faith  of  your  operations  in  the  north.  I  would 
rather  suffer  from  dolus:  too  much  than  too  little." 
And  the  worthy  commodore  suffered  sadly  at 
the  moment,  suspecting  that  he  had  d(me  a  good 
deal  too  much.  If  he  had  known  the  nature 
of  a  dispatch  that  would  be  on  the  way  to  him 
in  less  than  a  month,  fi'om  Secretary  Bancroft — 
a  dispatch  recalling  him  because  he  had  not 
acted  long  before — he  would  have  felt  relieved. 

Fremont  might  have  taken  the  commodore 
to  the  quarter-deck  and  pointed  to  the  Colling- 
luoocl^  'which  arrived  but  the  day  before.  He 
might  have  recalled  to  his  attention  the  fact 
that  Great  Britain  had  never  before  so  larsre  a 
squadron  in  the  Pacific  as  now;  that  Macna- 
mara,  the  priest,  had  resided  at  Mexico,  in  the 
house  of  a  British  official,  and  had  been  taken 
by  the  British  sloop-of-war  Juno  up  to  Santa 
Barbara  in  June ;  that  the  scheme  for  the  Brit- 
ish  occupation   of  the  country  was   well   con- 


184  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  cocted,  and  about  ripe;  and  tliat  America's 
chance  would  liave  slipped  irrevocaT)ly,  if  some- 
body had  not  taken  the  responsibility  before 
Admiral  Seymour  arrived. 

It  is  doubtful  if  the  argument  would  have 
comforted  the  commodore  much.  It  might 
have  accounted  for  the  ambitious  young  cap- 
tain's zeal,  but  there  was  a  mystery  still  that 
annoyed  him.  Tlie  captain  was  a  topographi- 
cal engineer,  not  an  army  officer,  and  Gillespie 
but  a  lieutenant  of  marines.  Yet  the  lieutenant 
of  marines  had  been  sent  past  him,  at  Mazatlan, 
without  a  message  for  Ids  eye,  to  whisper  an 
oral  message  to  the  young  engineer,  and  all  the 
while,  he,  Sloat,  a  faithful  officer  of  the  navy, 
long  in  service,  commander  of  the  squadron,  left 
to  take  his  cue  from  a  younger  man !  The 
commodore  was  sick,  disgusted,  and  fully  re- 
solved to  return  homeward  as  soon  as  he  could 
be  relieved. 

But  there  was  the  battalion  of  one  hundred 
and  sixty  men,  panting  for  the  work  of  crush- 
ing Castro  and  finishing  the  job  that  had  been 
taken  in  hand.  Would  the  commodore  ac- 
cept their  services?  By  no  means.  He  had 
no  service  for  them.  He  intended  to  tarry  in 
Monterey ;  there  was  no  war  of  his  making  to 
be  prosecuted. 

On  the  15th  of  July,  Commodore  Stockton 
arrived    at    Monterey,  in   the   United   States 


ST0CKT0]S"'S    AEEIVAL.  185 

frigate   Congress.      He  Lad  left  Norfolk,  Vir-  chap. 
ginia,  nine  months  before,  witli  sealed  orders,  __^__ 
which  were  to  be  opened  only  after  passing    1840. 
Hatteras.     The  orders  directed  him  to  repair     "^' 
first  to  the  Sandwich  Islands,  and  thence  to 
Monterey    and   deliver    dispatches   to   Consul 
Larkin,  and  then  to  report  to  his  superior  offi- 
cer.    Stockton  obeyed  his  order  to  the  letter, 
Sloat  at  once  expressed  his  intention  to  return 
to  the  East,  leaving  Stockton  in  command  of 
the  squadron. 

Fremont  and  Gillespie,  after  Sloat's  refusal  to 
have  any  thing  to  do  with  their  battalion,  had 
a  conference  with  Stockton.  The  New  Jersey 
commodore  took  a  different  view  of  things 
from  that  of  his  superior  officer.  He  was  suf- 
fering no  grievance,  had  not  been  overlooked  by 
the  Administration,  was  young  yet,  enjoyed  a 
good  digestion,  did  not  despise  the  credit  nor 
shrink  from  the  perils  of  being  a  conqueror. 

He  asked,  and  Sloat  granted  him  permission 
to  assume  command  at  once  of  the  land  forces. 
Then  he  invited  Fremont  and  Gillespie  to  take 
service  under  him  with  their  battalion.  Fre- 
mont was  at  the  head  of  the  popular  movement, 
and  in  a  branch  of  the  service  that  owed  no 
duty  to  a  naval  officer ;  but  he  was  glad  to  ac- 
cept, and  so  settle  cheaply  all  questions  of  the 
irregularity  of  his  late  proceedings.  Gillespie 
was  in  the  navy,  but  he  was  now  detailed  to  a 


186  THE    HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  special  duty  by  the  President.  So  his  accept- 
ance was  entirely  voluntary,  and  it  was  cheer- 
1846.  ful.  The  battalion  was  satisfied  with  any  thing 
"  ^'  that  promised  work.  Thus  the  reorganization 
was  completed  instantly.  Stockton  commis- 
sioned Fremont  as  major,  and  Gillespie  as  cap- 
tain of  what  thereafter  was  to  be  called  in  the 
official  documents  the  "  California  Battalion  of 
Mounted  Riflemen,"  but  in  common  j^arlauce, 
the  *'  Navy  Battalion." 

On  the  23d,  Commodore  Sloat  sailed  for 
home  in  the  Levant,,  and  the  same  day  Stockton, 
now  in  full  command,  dispatched  the  Cyane^ 
Commodore  Dupont,  to  convey  Major  Fremont 
and  his  battalion  to  San  Diego.  A  week  later, 
Stockton  himself  sailed  on  the  Congress  for 
San  Pedro.  At  Monterey  was  left  the  Savan- 
nah^ and  at  San  Francisco  the  Portsmouth. 

Before  he  left  Monterey,  Stockton  issued  a 
proclamation,  announcing  that  he  would  "  im- 
mediately march  against  the  boasting  and 
abusive  chiefs,  who  had  not  only  violated  every 
principle  of  national  hospitality  and  good  faith 
towards  Captain  Fremont,  but  who,  unless 
driven  out,  would  keep  this  beautiful  coun- 
try in  a  constant  state  of  revolution  and  blood- 
shed, as  well  as  against  all  others  who  might 
be  found  in  arms  aiding  and  abetting  Greneral 
Castro." 

There  was  not  wanting  a  certain   Mexican 


STOCKTOIN"  OCCUPIES  nrPORTANT  POINTS.  ISt 

flavor  in  this,  but  the  commodore  proceeded  chap 
with    great    dispatch    to    cany   his    promises 
into  effect,  which  was  a  very  un-Mexican  pro- 
cedure. 

The  Congress^  on  her  way  down  the  coast, 
touched  at  Santa  Barbara.  Stockton  went  on 
shore  and  took  possession  unhindered;  then, 
leaving  a  small  detachment  to  hold  the  place, 
he  sailed  on  to  San  Pedro.  Here,  on  the  6th 
of  August,  he  disembarked,  inquired  for  the 
enemy,  and  learned  that  Castro  and  Pico  were 
at  Los  Angeles,  with,  as  was  reported,  fifteen 
hundred  men.  He  learned,  too,  that  Fremont 
had  safely  reached  San  Diego,  but,  as  he  had 
found  it  exceedingly  difficult  to  obtain  horses 
to  mount  his  men,  there  was  little  reason  to 
hope  that  the  battalion  would  traverse  the 
hundred  and  thirty  miles  between  San  Diego 
and  Los  Angeles  in  time  to  hel])  capture 
Castro. 

Stockton  had  six  small  guns,  borrowed  from 
the  shipping,  and  they  probably  of  no  very 
belligerent  antecedents,  but  now  mounted  on 
rude  carriages  for  use.  Without  horses,  how- 
ever, of  what  service  would  they  be  I  With 
the  little  force  at  his  command  he  could  not 
strike  a  heavy  blow,  but  he  determined  it  should 
be  a  swift  one.  His  marines  and  all  the  sailors 
that  could  be  spared  from  the  ship  were  landed 
and  set  to  practising  the  artillery  drill.     The 


188  THE   HISTOKY   OF    CALIFORlSriA. 

CHAP,  tars  knew  very  well  tliat,  once  on  shore,  tliey 

^5^  might  have  to  find  their  way  back  to  Monterey 

1846.    overland,  for  the  harbor  of  San  Pedro  was  nevei 

'^"^"    to  be  trusted  in  case  of  a  storm.     The  drill  was 

all  Greek  to  them,  but  they  were  apt  scholars, 

and  soon  were  fit  to  be  trusted  to  march. 

While  they  were  in  the  camp  of  instruction, 
there  came  in  commissioners  from  Castro  with 
a  flag  of  truce,  proposing  that  all  active  opera- 
tions should  cease,  and  each  party  hold  the  pos- 
sessions it  had  until  terms  of  peace  could  be 
negotiated.  Stockton  doubted  whether  he 
could  trust  Castro's  promises,  but  did  not  doubt 
that  the  commissioners  were  really  spies.  So 
he  met  them  with  studied  sternness,  and  bade 
them  carry  back  word  that  no  terms  would  be 
accepted.  "  Tell  Castro  he  must  uncondition- 
ally surrender,  or  experience  my  vengeance." 
Meanwhile  he  occupied  the  opportunity  by 
skilfully  parading  his  men  at  distant  points  of 
view,  so  as  to  convey  the  impression  that  they 
were  a  mighty  multitude.  To  impress  the  com- 
missioners with  the  teiTible  nature  of  the  en- 
gines of  his  warfare,  he  so  arranged  a  huge 
mortar,  enveloping  it  in  skins,  except  its  mouth, 
that  they  did  not  doubt  that  they  beheld  a 
cannon  of  more  power  and  greater  calibre  than 
ever  had  been  displayed  on  the  coast  before. 
In  a  few  days  other  commissioners  appeared,  to 
assure  the  commodore  that  at  every  sacrifice  his 


THE    MARCH   TO    LOS    ANGELES.  189 

intentions    should   be   opposed.      These   were  chap. 
sent  back  with  much  the  same  lesson  fastened 
in  their  minds  as  their  predecessors  had  borne    1846. 
away.     On  the  11th  of  August,  five  days  after      "^" 
landing,  Stockton  took  up  the  line  of  march 
with   his    three   hundred.      Los   Angeles  was 
reached  that  night — the  cattle,  besides  which 
they  had  no  other  provisions,  being  driven  with 
them   in   a  hollow  square,   and  the  six   guns 
dragged  by  hand.     Castro's  skirmishers  were  in 
sight  much  of  the  time,  but  they  acted  simply  as 
scouts,  who  bore  to  Castro  tidings  of  the  pro- 
gress of  the  invaders. 

As  they  neared  the  intrenched  camp,  a 
courier  from  Castro  came  out,  kindly  to  warn 
them  that  the  to\^  n  would  prove  their  grave  if 
they  entered  it.  Stockton  hastened  the  courier 
back  with  word  to  the  general  to  have  the  bells 
tolled  at  eig^ht  in  the  mornino;,  for  at  that  time 
he  sliould  enter.  He  kept  his  word,  but 
Castro  did  not  wait  to  superintend  any  fu- 
neral ceremonies.  Breaking  up  his  camp,  he 
disbanded  his  forces  and  fled  to  the  province 
of  Sonora, 

Stockton  at  once  took  possession  of  Los  An- 
geles, where  he  was  soon  after  joined  by  Fre- 
mont and  his  battalion.  Havino;  received  of- 
ficial  notice  of  the  existence  of  the  war  with 
Mexico,  Stockton  proclaimed  California  a  terri- 
tory of  the  United  States,  organized  a  territo- 


190  THE   HISTOPwY   OF    CALIFOT^.NIA. 

CHAP,  rial  government,  reserved  for  himself  tlie  dutiea 
_^_^  of  governor,  appointed  trusty  men  to  certain  of 
184:().  ficial  stations  that  could  not  well  be  left  vacant, 
and  invited  the  people  to  meet  on  the  15th  of 
September  and  elect  officers  of  their  own.  He 
left  fifty  men,  under  Captain  Gillespie,  to  gar- 
rison Los  Angeles ;  others,  under  Lieutenant 
Talbot,  to  hold  Santa  Barl)ara,  and  others  to 
hold  San  Diego.  With  the  rest  of  his  force  he 
returned  to  Monterey.  Hearing  there  that 
a  thousand  Walla- Wallas  were  threateuini? 
the  inhabitants  of  the  Sacramento  Valley,  he 
sailed  for  Yerba  Buena  with  the  intention  of 
engaging  this  new  enemy,  but  learned  upon 
arrival  that  the  repoi't  was  without  founda- 
tion. 

The  hundred  or  two  inhabitants  of  Yerba 
Buena  and  the  people  of  the  neighboring  coun- 
try gave  Governor  Stockton  a  public  reception, 
going  down  in  procession  to  the  landing-place 
to  meet  him.  They  had  music,  a  ride,  a  dinner, 
p  with  toasts  and  speeches,  and   the    festivities 

closed  with  a  ball.  In  lack  of  any  thing  more 
to  do,  Stockton  conceived  the  project,  and  set 
Fremont  to  the  work  of  executing  it,  of  em- 
barkins;  a  force  of  volunteers  to  Mazatlau  or 
Acapulco,  and  thence  to  cross  the  country 
and  meet  General  Taylor  at  the  city  of  Mex- 
ico. 

But  there  was  more  work  to  be  done  at  home 


THE   CALlFOEiaANS   EEVOLT.  •  191 

before  the  conquest  of  California  was  completed,  chap. 
Among  tlie  persons  of  rank  who  surrendered  v_,^J_ 
as  prisoners  of  war  at  Los  Angeles,  and  were    184G. 
permitted   to   go  at  large    on  their  parole  of      ^^  ' 
honor,  was  General  Jose  M.  Flores.     No  soon- 
er had  Stockton  withdrawn  from  Los  Angeles 
than  Flores  began  to  rally  the  disbanded  troops 
and  organize  a  new  opposition.     On  the  2od  of 
September,  his    troops  invested  the   garrison, 
and  Captain  Gillespie,  seeing  nothing  else  to 
be  done,  capitulated  on  the   oOth,  and  retired 
with  his  riflemen  to  Monterey.     The  insurgents 
next  besieged  the  garrison  of  Santa  Bar])ara. 
Talbot  would  not  surrender  to  the  overwhelm- 
ing numbers    that  presented    themselves,  but 
safely  escaped  with  all  his  men. 

Then  Flores  and  his  conspirators  issued  a  Oct. 
proclamation  to  the  people.  They  attributed 
the  defeat  of  the  former  army  to  the  cowardice 
of  the  authorities.  They  called  upon  the  Cali- 
fornians  to  rally  for  the  expulsion  of  the 
•'  North  Americans,"  and  to  re-establish  the  De- 
partment of  California  as  a  member  of  the 
great  Mexican  nation.  They  declared  all  Mex- 
ican citizens  between  the  ages  of  fifteen  and 
sixty,  who  refused  to  take  up  arms,  traitors, 
incurring  the  penalty  of  death.  The  North 
Americans,  who  had  directly  or  indirectly  aided 
the  enemy,  were  to  be  removed,  and  their  prop- 
erty confiscated.      This   proclamation  was  in- 


192  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  dorsed  by  more  tliaii  three  hundred  persons, 
^_^^_^  all  swearing  never  to  lay  down  arms  till  the 
1846.  Americans  were  expelled  from  Mexican  terri- 
tory. 


THE  CONQUEST  REPEATED.  193 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

CALIFORNIA'S  THREE  CONQUERORS  AND    FIRST  THREE 
AMERICAN  GOVERNORS. 

4 

So  tlie  American  conquest  was  to  be  repeated,  chap 
Stockton   heard  tlie  news  from  Gillespie,  and      ___ 
sent  immediately  the  Savannah  to  San  Pedro,    1846. 
with  three  hundred  and  twenty  men,  under  the 
command  of  Captain  Merviue.      They  landed, 
attacked  a  large  number  of  mounted  Califor- 
uiaus  some  twelve  miles  from  San  Pedro,  and 
were  rei^ulsed,  losing  five  men  killed  and  six 
wounded.     Fremont  he  ordered,  with  one  hun- 
dred and  sixty  volunteers,  to  proceed  to   Santa 
Barbara,  there  to  mount  his  men,  and  meet  the 
commander-in-chief,  who  had  sailed  in  the  Con- 
gress for  San  Pedro,  at  Los  Angeles. 

Stockton  effected  his  landing  on  the  2od  of 
October,  in  the  face  of  eig-ht  hundred  of  the 
enemy  ;  but,  on  account  of  the  impossil)ility  of 
procuring  supplies,  re-embarked  for  San  Diego. 
Attempting  to  enter  that  harboi",  the  Congress 
grounded  on  the  bar,  and  just  then  the  enemy 
attacked  the  town.      Stockton  landed  all  the 

13 


194  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  men  that  could  be  spared  from  the  ship,  de- 

^^' .  feated  the  enemy,  and  saved  the  town. 

1846.        Though  victorious,  it  was  any  thing  but  a 

^°^*    pleasant  prospect  that  the  commodore  found 

there   before   him.     There   were  no  cattle  or 

horses,  for  the  enemy  had  taken  the  precaution 

to  drive  them  into  the  interior.     He   sent  out 

messengers  to  the  south  to  j)rocure  some,  who, 

after  much  labor,  returned  with  one  hundred 

and  forty  wretched  horses  and  five  hundred 

cattle.      Meanvvdiile  he    heard  from  Fremont, 

who,  utterly  failing  to  procure  horses  at  Santa 

Barbara,  had  gone  up  to  Monterey  to  see  what 

could  be  done  there. 

Stockton  established  a  camp,  built  a  fort, 
Dec.  set  his  men  to  constructing  bridles,  saddles,  and 
shoes,  and  trained  them  in  theu'  tactics.  While 
thus  busily  engaged,  on  the  3d  of  December,  a 
messeng;er  arrived,  announcing;  that  Bi'iQ:adier- 
General  Kearny  was  approaching  from  the 
East,  and  desirous  of  opening  communication 
with  him.  The  same  evenins;  the  commander 
sent  off  Captain  Gillespie,  with  thirty-five 
men,  to  meet  the  general.  Three  days  later 
another  messenger  came,  saying  that  General 
Kearny  had  been  defeated  at  San  Pasqual,  with 
the  loss  of  eighteen  men  killed  and  as  many 
more  wounded,  and  the  capture  of  one  of  his 
howitzers.  He  was  even  then  surrounded  by  the 
enemy,  who  threatened  every  hour  an  attack. 


GENERAL    KEARNY    IN    TROUBLE.  195 

Stockton  instantly  prepared,  bad  as  was  liis  chap. 
condition    for  the  marcli,  to  proceed  with  all 
his  force  to   aid  Kearny ;  but   as   still   other    i84G. 
messengers  came  in,  telling  a  better  story  of      ^^' 
the   general's   strength,   he  contented   himself 
with  sending  Lieutenant  Grey  and  two  hundred 
and  fifty  men  to  his  relief. 

How  Kearny  came  into  this  position  is 
thus  explained :  He  had  left  St.  Louis  under 
orders  from  the  War  Department  to  cross  the 
continent  to  New  Mexico  and  Califoi-nia,  and, 
if  he  should  conquer,  to  establish  a  civil  govern- 
ment over  them.  New  Mexico  fell  readily  be- 
fore his  force.  As  he  Mas  about  to  move  on- 
ward thence,  he  met  Kit  Carson,  with  letters 
from  Stockton  and  Fremont,  announcino^  that 
the  conquest  of  California  was  already  achieved. 
So,  turning  back  the  greater  part  of  his  troops, 
he  proceeded  with  only  a  small  detachment  of 
dragoons  as  a  body-guard. 

At  the  mouth  of  the  Gila,  Lieutenant  Emory, 
of  his  party,  captured  a  horseman  with  the  Cali- 
fornia mail  for  Sonora.  From  letters  that  it 
bore,  he  read  that  the  south  had  risen  on  the 
conquerors,  and  retaken  the  lower  country. 
Kearnv  srave  little  credence  to  the  tale,  thouo^h 
it  Avas  true  enough.  Still,  when  near  San  Pas- 
qual,  thirty-six  miles  from  San  Diego,  he  thought 
it  prudent,  in  his  wearied,  travel-worn  state,  to 
halt  until  he  could  hear  from  Stockton.     Mr. 


196  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFOEKlA. 

CHAP.  Stokes,  tlie  Ens'lishman  wlio  owned  the  ranclio 
where  lie  halted,  conveyed  to  San  Diego  the 

isi6.   message  that  brought  Lieutenant  Gillespie,  on 
the  5th,  to  Kearny''s  camp. 

Before  the  dawn  of  the  next  day,  Kearay 
and  Gillespie  moved  forward ;  but  the  Califor- 
nians  were  up  equally  early,  and  gave  them  a 
warm  recej)tion.  The  Americans  maintained 
their  position;  but  in  the  conflict  they  lost 
eighteen  killed  and  thirteen  wounded,  and, 
among  the  latter,  both  Kearny  and  Gillespie. 
They  buried  their  dead  that  night,  and  next 
morning  again  took  up  their  march.  Encuin- 
bered  as  they  were  with  their  wounded,  they 
charged  upon  the  Californians,  w^ho  came  out  to 
dispute  their  way,  and  drove  them  from  the 
field.  On  the  following  morning,  December 
8th,  the  Americans  found  the  desolate  hill  of 
San  Fernando,  which  they  occupied,  besieged 
on  all  sides.  They  were  out  of  supplies,  sick, 
wounded,  foot-sore.  Fortunately,  they  obtained 
water  on  digging  for  it,  and  so  were  not  utter- 
ly hopeless.  They  must  have  perished  but  for 
the  heroism  of  Kit  Carson,  whom  Kearny  had 
turned  l)ack  fi'om  the  errand  with  which  Stock- 
ton and  Fremont  had  sent  him  eastward,  and 
reserved  for  his  guide  through  the  desert. 
Carson,  Lieutenant  Beale,  and  an  Indian  volun- 
teered to  pierce  the  circle  of  the  enemy,  and 
convey  intelligence  to  Stockton  of  their  perilous 


MARCH   FROM    SAN    DIEGO    TO    LOS    ANGELES.       197 

situation.     The   desperate   attempt   succeeded,  char 
and  on  tbe  night  of  the  10th,  Lieutenant  Grey  ^.^^^ 
and  his  drao-oons  came  dashino^  up  to  San  Fer-    1846. 
nando,  at  the  sound  of  whose  advance  the  be- 
sieoino-  force  fled,  and  troubled  them  no  more. 

Two  daj'S  later,  Kearny's  party  were  in  San 
Diego.  The  commodore  received  the  general 
graciously,  and  tendered  him  the  chief  command. 
This  Kearny  politely  declined,  though  he  ex- 
pressed his  desire  to  command  under  Stockton, 
which,  of  course,  w^as  permitted  him.  On  the 
29th  of  December  the  march  w^as  commenced 
throuirh  the  sands  and  over  the  ruo'2:ed  monn- 
tains  that  make  up  the  hundred  and  thirty 
miles  of  distance  between  San  Diego  and  Los 
Ano-eles ;  and  about  the  same  time  commenced 
the  quarrel  betw-een  Kearny  and  Stockton, 
which  was  removed  afterwards  to  Washington, 
was  thoroughly  ventilated  on  the  court-martial 
of  Fremont,  and  for  a  long  time  arrayed  against 
each  other  the  friends  of  these  distinguished 
citi2;ens.  The  disao-reement  tino-es  all  their  after 
proceedings  on  the  Pacific  coast,  but  led  to  no 
serious  collision  until  the  reconquest  was  com- 
pleted. 

The  advancing  forces  consisted  of  Captain 
Tilghman's  comjDany  of  artillery,  a  detachment 
of  the  first  regiment  of  dragoons,  Companies  A 
and  B  of  the  California  battalion  of  mounted 
riflemen,  and  a  detachment  of  sailors  and  ma- 


198  THE   II.3T0RY    OF   CALIFORNIA. 

OHAP.  rines  from  the  frigates  Congress  and  Savannah 
_  ■  and  tlie  ship  Portsmouth.  The  horses  were  in 
1840.  such  wretched  condition,  that  Captain  Turner, 
^^'  of  the  dragoons,  preferred  to  go  without  them. 
The  men  wore  canvas  shoes  of  their  own  manu- 
facture, and  were  otherwise  but  miserably 
equipped.  It  was  in  the  midst  of  the  rainy 
season,  and  whenever  the  line  of  march  led 
them  out  of  the  sand,  it  took  them  into  mud 
ankle  deep.  The  draught-horses  gave  out  so 
fast  that  half  the  work  of  dragging  the  guns, 
ammunition,  and  provision  wagons  devolved 
upon  the  men.  Kit  Carson  and  a  corps  of 
scouts  kept  ahead  of  the  main  body,  engaging 
in  frequent  skirmishes. 
1847.  From  San  Luis  Rey,  Stockton  sent  a  messen- 
Jan.  ggj.  ^Q  announce  to  Fremont  his  advance,  and 
to  caution  him  against  risking  an  action  before 
their  forces  could  be  joined.  This  messenger 
was  dispatched  on  the  3d  of  January,  ])ut  he 
did  not  reach  Fremont  until  the  9th.  Several 
times  runners  came  from  Flores,  proposing  com- 
promises; but  they  were  all  rejected,  and  word 
sent  back  that  if  he,  or  any  one  else,  who,  like 
him,  had  l:>roken  his  parole,  should  be  caught, 
he  would  surely  be  shot. 

On  the  7th  of  January  it  was  discovered  that 
the  enemy,  apparently  a  thousand  or  twelve 
hundred  in  number,  and  mostly  cavalry,  were 
drawn  up  on  the  bank  of  the  river  San  Gabriel, 


MARCH  FEOM  SAN  DIEGO  TO  LOS  ANGELES.  199 

in  position  to  command  tlie  ford.  Next  morn- 
ing, Stockton  advanced,  and,  when  within  a  quar- 
ter of  a  mile  of  the  river,  formed  his  men  into 
line,  and  gave  orders  not  to  hre  a  gun  until  all 
had  crossed.  The  order  was  obeyed,  though 
the  enemy  did  not  intermit  their  brisk  but  in- 
effectual discharges.  As  they  were  crossing, 
Kearny  sent  word  to  Stockton  that  the  bed  of 
the  river,  in  which  there  was  about  four  feet 
of  water,  consisted  of  quicksands,  and  that  the 
guns  could  not  be  safely  transported.  "  Quick- 
sands or  no  quicksands,"  said  Stockton,  "the 
guns  shall  pass  over,"  and  hurried  to  the  head 
of  his  column,  took  his  place  at  the  ropes,  and 
himself  assisted  to  dra<?  the  j^uns  across.  All 
over,  the  line  of  battle  was  ae^ain  formed. 
Kearny  charged  up  the  bank,  while  Stockton 
gave  his  attention  to  repelling  an  assault  upon 
his  flank,  with  which  the  enemy,  descending 
to  the  bank  of  the  river,  had  visited  him.  The 
assault  was  repelled,  and,  the  enemy  retreating, 
Stockton  with  his  artillery  pushed  up  the  de- 
clivity after  them.  Arrived  on  the  heights,  he 
found  the  enemy  drawn  up  in  battle  array,  with 
their  artillery  in  front,  but  his  well-aimed  fire 
soon  scattered  them.  A  portion  of  their  right 
wing  came  upon  the  rear  of  the  Americans,  who 
were  guarding  the  baggage  and  cattle,  but  Cap- 
tain Gillespie  handsomely  repulsed  them,  and 
drove  them  across  the  river.     The  main  body 


200  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA 

CHAP,  fled  towards  Los  Angeles,  stopping  occasionally 
^__^  to  renew  tlie  defence,  but  always  without  suc- 
1847.  cess. 

^^'  The  next  day,  Stockton  came  upon  tliem  again, 
*  well  posted  on  tlie  plains.  Here  the  Califor- 
nians  redeemed  their  reputation  for  valor. 
They  charged  gallantly  upon  Stockton's  army, 
but  were  met  with  a  disastrous  lire.  The 
second  attack  was  made  upon  three  sides  of 
the  square  at  once,  yet  it  met  with  the  same 
result.  The  third  time  they  returned  to  the 
charge,  and  a  third  time  were  repulsed  with 
loss,  after  which  they  fled  in  confusion. 

On  the  10th  of  January,  Stockton  marched 
into  Los  Angeles,  and  raised  again  the  very  flag 
that  Gillespie  had  been  compelled  through  the 
treachery  of  Flores  to  strike  some  three  months 
before. 

Meanwhile,  Fremont  from  Monterey,  where 
he  was  trying  to  get  horses  for  his  battalion, 
had  sent  news  to  Sutter's  Fort  of  the  disasters 
at  the  southland  beo:2:ed  for  re-enforcements 
from  among  the  settlers.  Edwin  Bryant  and 
some  friends  scoured  the  country  for  volunteers, 
184G.  and  not  without  success.  On  the  29th  of  No- 
vember, these  recruits  from  the  north  joined 
Fremont  near  San  Juan  Bautista,  where  he  had 
gone  in  pursuit  of  a  party  of  Californiaus 
which    had   taken     Consul    Larkin    prisoner, 


Nov, 


Nov. 


ON    THE    MAECH.  201 

thono'h  before  his   arrival  the  consul  had  been 
rescued. 

Fremont's  battalion  now  numbered,  includ-  ]846. 
ing  Indians  and  servants,  four  hundred  and 
twenty-eight.  Excepting  his  original  explor- 
ing party,  the}^  consisted  of  volunteers  from  the 
American  settlements,  and  newly  arrived  emi- 
grants, who  were  expert  Avith  the  rifle,  a  few 
Walla- Wallas  from  Oregon,  and  some  native 
Californians.  Each  man  had  in  his  leathern 
girdle  a  hunter's  and  a  l)owie  knife.  Each 
carried  a  rifle,  holster  pistols,  and  sometimes 
a  brace  of  pocket  pistols  besides.  The  best 
equipped  wore  trousers  and  moccasons  of  buck- 
skin, and  broad-brimmed  hats;  the  worst-sup- 
plied made  blue  flannel  answer  in  place  of 
buckskin. 

The  battalion  was  oro;anized  into  eio-ht  com- 
panics  of  cavalry,  and  one  of  artillery  which 
Louis  McLane  commanded.  They  drove  five 
or  six  hundred  mules  with  them,  besides  pack- 
mules  loaded  with  baggage  and  provisions. 
They  began  their  march  southward  on  the  30th 
of  November,  but  halted  the  next  two  days 
while  a  party  returned  to  the  mission  and 
brought  back  a  hundred  head  of  cattle,  which 
the  troops  drove  before  them,  confining  them 
in  a  movable  corral  at  night,  and  slaughtering 
from  the  herd  as  they  were  needed. 

The  rainy  season  had  rendered  the  travelling 


202  THE    HISTORY    OF    CALIFOETTIA. 

CHAP,  exceed  in  o^ly  l^ad,  and  the  scround  was  so  wa^^lied 

XVI  •  •  • 

by  the  rains  that  it  furnished  little  fodder  for 
1840.  the  cattle.  The  half-starved  horses  frequently 
gave  out  on  the  march,  and  they  seldom  made 
more  than  fifteen  miles  a  day.  Their  cattle 
corral  was  soon  empty  ;  but  happily  they  found 
sheep  in  plenty  at  the  Missions  of  San  Miguel 
and  San  Luis  Obispo,  whose  fine  cactus-hedged 
enclosures  lay  on  their  route. 

They  captured  a  few  prisoners  as  they  pro- 
ceeded.    Amono:  these  was  Jesus  Pico,  a  dis- 
tinguished  citizen,  who  had  been   released  by 
Stockton  on  his  parole,  and  had  afterwards  vio- 
^  lated  the  terms  of  his  release.     For  this  ofl:ence 

he  wa:s  tried  l>y  a  court-martial  and  sentenced 
to  be  shot.  The  women  came  in  procession  at 
San  Luis  to  intercede  for  his  pardon,  and  not 
in  vain.  Colonel  Fremont,  with  impressive 
deliberation,  granted  the  pardon,  and  thereby, 
as  he  said  on  his  own  court-martial,  won  the 
hearts  of  the  people. 

On  Christmas  Day  the  battalion  was  drag- 
ging its  weary  way  up  the  difiicult  pass  of  the 
St.  Ynez  Mountain.  The  wind  was  a  gale, 
and  the  rain  poured  down.  Descending  the 
southern  slope  of  the  mountain,  many  horses 
fell  into  the  ravines  and  were  swej)t  away  by 
the  flood.  Others  tumbled  over  the  precipices 
and  were  killed.  It  was  late  at  night  before 
the   drenched   and   wretched  party   straggled 


Jan. 


FEE3I0NT   PAEDOXS    JESUS    TICO.  203 

down  to  the  foot  of  the  mountain,  and  en- 
camped on  ground  so  saturated  that  all  efforts 
to  kindle  a  fire  were  useless.  'Next  day  the 
castaway  baggage  was  brought  down,  and 
some  of  the  stray  animals ;  but  there  were  not 
horses  enough  to  left  mount  the  meu. 

They  entered  Santa  Barbara  on  the  27th, 
and  remained  there  in  camp  for  a  week.  They 
resumed  the  march  on  the  5th  of  January,  i847 
1847,  and  next  day  effected,  without  seeing  an 
enemy,  the  naiTow  pass  of  the  Kincon,  where 
they  confidently  expected  that  the  way  would 
be  disputed,  as  it  miglit  have  been  by  a  very 
small  force.  On  the  6th,  when  some  seven 
miles  from  the  Mission  of  Bueua  Ventura,  they 
saw  sixty  or  seventy  mounted  Californians 
drawn  up  in  order,  but  they  disappeared  as  the 
battalion  advanced.  A  little  later  the  courier 
from  Stockton  met  them,  announcing  that  the 
commodoi-e  and  Kearny  were  on  the  way 
from  St.  Diego  to  Los  Angeles.  On  the  11th, 
approaching  San  Fernando,  they  met  Califor- 
nians, who  told  them  that  Stockton  and  Kear- 
ny were  in  Los  Angeles. 

Here  too  suddenly  swarmed  about  them  the 
enemy,  apparently  in  strong  force.  Fremont 
sent  them  a  summons  to  surrender.  Though 
they  would  not  obey  that  order,  they  did  not 
seem  indisposed  to  parley.  So  the  colonel  and 
Don  Jesus  Pico,  his  pardoned  captive,  and  now 


204  THE    IIISTOKY    OF   CALIFOEIflA. 

cifAP.  fast  friend,  went  out  to  meet  their  chiefs.  Fre- 
mont did  not   know  that  Stockton  had  previ- 

1847.  ously  and  rei)eatedly  refused  all  terms  to  these 
^^*  same  men.  They  professed  to  admire  Fremont's 
clemency  towards  Pico,  and  flattered  him  by 
assurances  that  to  him  and  him  alone  they 
would  capitulate.  Commissioners  were  speed- 
ily ap2:)ointed  from  each  side  to  negotiate,  and 
the  result  of  their  labors  was  the  Treaty  of 
Coueuga.  By  its  articles  the  Califoi-nians 
agreed  to  surrender  their  artillery  and  public 
arms,  to  return  to  their  homes,  and  assist  in 
maintaining  the  public  peace.  The  Americans 
agreed  to  protect  the  life  and  j^roperty  of  all 
Californian  or  Mexican  officers  and  privates, 
whether  they  took  up  arms  while  on  23arole  or 
otherwise.  Equal  rights  were  guaranteed  citi- 
zens of  California  and  of  the  United  States.  All 
paroles  were  cancelled,  and  their  conditions  an- 
nulled, and  all  prisoners  of  both  parties  released. 
The  oath  of  allegiance  was  not  to  be  required 
of  any  Mexican  or  Californian  until  a  treaty  of 
peace  between  Mexico  and  the  United  States 
was  signed,  and  if  any  such  Mexican  or  Cali- 
fornian desired  to  leave  the  country,  he  could 
do  so  witliout  let  or  hindrance.  The  treaty, 
signed  by  Major  P.  B.  Heading,  Captain  Louis 
McLane,  and  Colonel  Wm.  H.  Kussell  for  the 
Americans ;  and  by  Jose  Antonio  Carrillo  and 
Augustin  Olivera  for  the  Californians,  was  ap- 


THE  TREATY  OF  COUENGA.  205 

proved,  Jannary  lOtb,  by  Fremont,  as  "Mill-  chap. 
tary  Commandant  of  California,"  and  by 
Andres  Pico,  "  Commandant  of  Squadron  and 
Chief  of  the  ISTational  Forces  of  California."  It 
was  instantly  proclaimed,  as  needing  no  further 
ratification,  and  the  war  was  ended. 

The  Treaty  of  Couenga  l)rought  peace  to'  the 
contending  armies  and  the  people,  but  trouble 
enough  to  the  three  chief  agents  in  the  conquest 
of  the  country.  Fortunately,  Flores,  when  his 
forces  dissolved  before  Stockton,  fled  toSonora. 
If  he  had  remained  it  is  doubtful  if  the  com- 
modore would  have  assented  to  the  terms  of 
the  treaty.  It  was  very  natural  that  he  should 
prefer  to  make  his  own  stipulations  with  an 
enemy  whom  he  had  defeated.  Still  there  the 
treaty  was,  signed,  proclaimed,  and  under  its 
grateful  shade  the  late  Ijelligerents  were  at 
peace.  Kearny  urged  its  recognition,  and 
Stockton  was  too  shrewd  to  object.  In  fact, 
neither  could  afford  just  at  that  time  to  quarrel 
with  the  man  uho  made  it. 

Fremont  perceived  the  gravity  of  the  next 
matter  that  claimed  his  attention,  and  moved 
deliberately.  Halting  still  at  the  Couenga 
rancho,  he  sent  Colonel  Russell  to  Los  Angeles 
to  discover  who  was  chief  in  command  there, 
and  to  report  to  him.  Kearny  was  his  supe- 
rior officer  in  the  army,  to  a  department  of 
which  he  b«long-ed.     But  to  Stockton  he  was 


206  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 


"iiAP.  owing  the  authority  under  which  he  had  raised 


XVI. 


Jan. 


his  battalion  and  written  "  Military  Comman- 
1847.  dant "  after  his  name.  It  was  a  delicate  mat- 
ter for  him  to  decide,  and  he  proposed  to  leave 
it  for  their  decision. 

The  messenger,  returning,  reported  that 
Stockton  was  acting  as  chief,  but  that  Kearny 
claimed  for  himself  supei'iorlty.  Both  command- 
ers were  exceedingly  complacent  towards  him, 
both  tendered  desirable  positions, but  Stockton's 
bid  was  rather  the  most  tempting.  Stockton 
had  previously  arranged  to  leave  the  country 
soon,  and  he  had  transmitted  to  Washington 
his  intention  to  make  Fremont  governor  on 
leaving.  Kearny  held  that  he  was  endowed 
with  the  functions  of  governor  bj^  his  orders 
.from  Washington;  but,  if  Fremont  should  re- 
port to  him,  h.e  proposed  to  make  him  his  suc- 
cessor at  some  future  day. 

Fremont  knew  that  Kearny  was  authorized 
to  establish  a  civil  government  in  California, 
provided  he  should  conquer  it,  as  he  had  done 
in  New  Mexico.  But  Stockton  and  Fremont 
insisted  that  the  conquest  was  accomplished  be- 
fore he  crossed  the  plains.  Or  if  the  conquest 
was  not  complete,  as  these  later  troubles  showed, 
it  was  with  a  bad  grace  that  he  set  up  to  be 
its  conqueror,  who  was  shut  up  at  San  Pasqual, 
and  mi2:ht  have  starved  there  but  for  the  relief 
that  Stockton  sent  him. 


PEEMONT   AS    GOVEENOE.  207 

To  Stockton,  tben,  Fremont  reported,  wlien  chap, 
on  the  14tli  lie  entered  Los  Angeles,  and  by    '^^^' 
that  act,  as  it  gave  liim  the  command  of  the    i847. 
four  hundred  effective  troops  of  the  battalion,    '^''^^^' 
the  commodore  won  the  field  from  the  o-eneral. 
A  military  tribunal  has  since  reversed  the  de- 
cision, and  held  Fremont  to  blame  for  his  choice. 

Two  days  later,  Fremont  received  from  Stock- 
ton his  commission  as  governor.  Kearny  still 
kindly  remonstrated ;  but  when  he  found  his 
dissuasion  quite  in  vain,  he  detennined  to  arrest 
and  punish  the  offender.  For  a  little  season  the 
general's  wrath  was  quite  impotent.  But,  re- 
pairing to  San  Diego,  he  found  that  the  Mor- 
mon battalion,  part  of  the  re-enforcements  for 
Kearny's  "  Army  of  the  West,"  which  Stirling 
Price  had  brought  to  Santa  Fe,  had  arrived, 
under  Colonel  St.  George  Cooke.  Cooke  re- 
ported to  Kearny,  who  thence  proceeded  by 
sea  to  Monterey. 

Scarcely  was  Kearny  gone  from  Los  An- 
geles, when  Stockton  also  departed.  At  San 
Pedro  he  re-embarked  his  marines,  and  sailed 
for  the  Mexican  coast. 

So  Fremont  was  left  alone  as  governor.  He 
resided  in  the  mansion  where  several  California 
governors  before  him  had  lived.  His  battalion 
he  sent  to  San  Gabriel  for  quarters.  He  en- 
joyed the  friendship  of  the  first  families  of  the 
land.     He  was  honored   for   his   position,  his 


*208  THE    HISTORY   OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  achievements,   liis   gentlemanly   bearing.      He 
^^^'    was  nt   peace  with  all  men,  and  tlirougliout 
1847.   the  length  and  breadth  of  the  land  order  pre-' 
Marcli.  ■^T^^ij.gj^     i^  lasted  some  seven  weeks,  and  then 
a  storm ! 

At  Monterey  Kearny  found  Commodore 
Shubrick  in  the  Independence,  and  the  two,  per- 
haps disgusted  that  so  young  a  man  as  Fre- 
mont should  be  leading  so  meny  a  life,  while 
his  elders  were  neither  governors  nor  popularly 
regarded  as  conquerors,  harmonized  in  a  course 
that  plucked  the  roses  from  his  path,  and 
strewed  it  with  thorns.  First,  ihej  sent  him 
the  copy  of  a  proclamatioji,  dated  March  1st, 
1847,  signed  jointly  by  the  two,  declaring  that 
President  Polk  had  assigned  to  the  naval  com- 
mander— that  was  Shubrick — the  reo-ulatino;  of 
port  charges ;  and  to  the  military  commander — 
that  was  Kearny — the  functions  of  governor. 
Second,  there  came  to  him  a  prochimation,  bear- 
ing the  same  date,  signed  by  Kearny  alone, 
telling  thQ  old  story  of  his  authority,  and  how 
he  came  by  it,  announcing  the  entire  annexa- 
tion of  California  to  the  United  States,  absolv- 
ing all  Callforiiians  from  allegiance  to  Mexico, 
and  continuing  the  Mexican  laws  in  operation, 
and  the  existing  civil  officers  in  theu'  offices, 
provided  they  would  swear  to  support  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  United  States. 

It  was  not  Fremont  alone  who  was  startled 


March 


THE   TREATY    OF    COUEIs'GA    IGNORED.  209 

by  this  unlieralded  proclamation.  It  abroga-  ciiap 
ted  the  Treaty  of  Couenga,  without  so  much  v_^_„ 
as  namino'  it.  Califoruians  found  their  citizen-  1847. 
ship  transferred  without  the  courtesy  of  a  ques- 
tion asked.  The  man  whom  they  had  accepted 
at  the  hands  of  the  American  authorities,  as 
their  governor,  after  valiantly  declining  him, 
and  being  honorably  compelled  to  succumb, 
and  with  whom  now  they  were  well  pleased, 
was  utterly  ignored.  With  him  went  the  terms 
of  their  capitulation.  What  next  would  the 
Americans  do  ?  Perhaps  annex  them  to  the 
Chinese  Empire  !  perhaps  proclaim  them  an  in- 
tegral part  of  the  Cannibal  Islands  !  The  whole 
procedure  seemed  to  them  a  gratuitous  insult, 
and  an  incomprehensible  piece  of  insolence,  that 
a  word  from  Fremont  would  have  tempted 
them  to  repudiate. 

But  Fi^emont,  though  mortified  beyond  meas- 
ure, was  reasonably  prudent.  On  the  11th  of 
March  he  received  orders  through  Kearny, 
which  discovered  to  him  that  the  Administration 
at  Washinofton  would  side  ao-ainst  Stockton  and 
himself.  These  orders  required  him  to  muster 
the  California  battalion  into  the  regular  service, 
or,  if  they  were  unwilling  to  be  so  disposed  of, 
to  conduct  them  to  San  Francisco  and  discharge 
them.  Moreover,  he  was  assured  that  Colonel 
Cooke  was  made  commandant  of  the  southern 
district,  with  his  Mormon  battalion  to  back  his 
14 


210  THE   HISTORY    OF   CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  authority.     Here  was  a  pretty  position  for  a 
governor  in  good  and  regular  standing ! 

1847.  Fremont  was  military  man  enough  to  know 
'^^^  '  how  to  obey,  though  every  item  of  these  orders 
was  a  cruel  stab  at  his  authority,  his  pride,  his 
self-respect.  His  battalion,  moreover,  claimed  to 
have  a  wnll  of  its  own.  Officers  and  men  re- 
fused to  be  mustered.  They  would  be  dis- 
banded if  there  were  no  help  for  it,  but  they 
would  like  their  pay  for  past  services  before 
even  that  were  done. 

Fremont  ordered  the  officers  to  keep  things 
as  they  were  until  his  return,  and  then,  with 
Jesus  Pico  and  a  solitary  servant,  mounted  for 
a  ride  to  Monterey.  In  three  days  and  a  half 
he  had  put  some  four  hundred  miles  between 
him  and  Los  Angeles.  He  called  on  General 
Kearny,  but  was  refused  permission  to  see 
him,  except  in  the  presence  of  Colonel  Mason, 
who  had  arrived  with  instructions  to  relieve 
General  Kearny,  and  allow  Colonel  Fremont 
to  join  his  regiment  or  to  pursue  his  intermitted 
explorations,  as  he  chose.  Fremont's  errand 
was  to  consult  with  Kearny  as  to  the  payment 
of  the  battalion,  but  Kearny  was  in  no  con- 
sultino:  mood.  He  demanded  to  know  if  Fre- 
mont  would  obey  him.  Fremont  answered 
that  he  would.  "Then  send  those  of  the  bat- 
talion, who  refuse  to  be  mustered,  to  Monterey, 
and  come  yourself  by  land,"  said  his  chief. 


FEEMONT   DISOBEYS    ORDERS,  211 

Swiftly  as  lie  had  come,  Fremont  returned  to  chap. 
Los  Angeles  to  learn  that  Colonel  Cooke  had 
been  there  in  his  absence,  to  demand  the  ord-    i847. 
nance  of  the  battalion,  which,  according  to  their   '  P'"^  • 
orders,  the  officers   had  refused   to  surrender. 
Close  on  his  heels  came  Colonel,  alias  Governor 
Mason,  orderino^  Governor  Fremont  to  embark 
his  men  for  Monterey,  and  himself  appear  there 
twelve  days  afterwards. 

Fremont  proposed  to  mount  his  original  party, 
with  the  intention  of  joining  the  regiment,  of 
which  he  was  a  lieutenant-colonel,  in  Mexico. 
But  the  twelve  days,  the  whole  month  of  April 
passed,  and  he  still  lingered.  . 

Kearny  meanwhile  had  received  new  acces- 
sions to  his  forces.  Colonel  Jonathan  D.  Ste- 
venson's New  York  Resriment  of  Volunteers 
arrived  by  way  of  Cape  Horn,  in  four  transport 
ships,  the  Thomas  H.  Perhins^  Loo-Choo,  Susan 
Drew,  and  Brutus.  The  three  first  named  left 
New  York  September  26th,  1846;  the  Brutus 
left  later.  The  first  to  arrive  was  the  Perhins^ 
March  6th,  1847. 

This  regiment  was  composed  of  men  selected 
with  reference  to  their  willingness  to  tarry  in 
the  country,  if  they  found  it  what  they  ex- 
pected ;  artisans  of  all  sorts,  men  versed  in  the 
arts  of  peace,  but  bearing  arms,  and  retaining 
their  military  organization  till  the  close  of  the 
war.     Except  two  companies,  which  were  sent 


212  THE    HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  to  La  Paz  to  take  possession  of  Lower  Califor- 

XVI         •  ... 

nia,  the  regiment  was  distributed  tbrougliout 


California  to  garrison  its  chief  points.  They 
did  good  service  as  soldiers,  and  afterwards  as 
civilians  reflected  no  discredit  on  their  origin. 

Early  in  May,  Kearny  went  to  Los  Angeles, 
to  hasten  the  proceedings  of  his  tardy  subordi- 
nate. He  refused  Fremont  permission  to  join 
his  regiment,  sold  the  horses  he  had  collected, 
and  ordered  him  instantly  to  repair  to  Monterey. 
There  he  compelled  him  to  turn  over  his  ex- 
ploring instruments  to  another  party.  AVhen  at 
Jnneio  last  Kearny  was  ready  to  go  East,  Fremont  was 
obliged  to  keep  him  company,  with  orders  to 
encamp  at  night  in  the  rear  of  the  Mormon 
o^uard,  and  never  more  than  a  mile  awav  from 
the  genei-al ;  at  Foi-t  Leavenworth  be  was  ar- 
rested; at  Fortress  Monroe,  a  court-martial 
found  him  guilty  of  mutiny,  disobedience,  and 
disorderly  conduct,  and  sentenced  him  to  forfeit 
his  commission. 

On  this  trial  Fremont  behaved  with  spirit, 
and  pleaded  his  cause  with  an  eloquence  that 
made  the  people  of  the  States  reverse  the  deci- 
sion so  soon  as  they  read  the  proceedings.  The 
court  recommended  him  to  the  clemency  of  the 
President,  on  the  grounds  of  Lis  past  services, 
and  the  peculiar  position  in  which  he  was 
placed  when  the  alleged  disobedience  took 
place.     Mr.  Polk  was  not  sure  that  the  mutiny 


FREMONT  GOES  HOME  UNDER  ARREST.     213 

was  proven,  though  the  other  charges  were,  and  chap. 
they  were  enough  to  warrant  the  sentence.  So 
he  approved  the  court's  decision,  discharged  i847. 
the  culprit  from  arrest,  and  directed  him  to  "'^®' 
report  for  duty.  Fremont  spurned  the  mercy 
of  the  President,  and  retired  from  the  army. 
The  people — to  them  these  cases  go  for  final 
adjudication — pronounced  it  superlatively  mean 
to  visit  the  consequences  of  an  irrepressible 
conflict  between  two  senior  officers  upon  a 
junior,  who  could  not  possibly  side  with  both 
parties,  and  had  the  manliness  to  take  the  re- 
sponsibility of  reporting  to  the  one  he  thought 
best  entitled  to  his  services.  They  saw  merits 
in  their  hero  that  probably  never  would  have 
struck  them  if  he  had  not  been  shamefully  mal- 
treated. If  he  had  been  left  quietly  in  Califor- 
nia, until  superseded  in  a  regular  way,  probably 
Stockton  would  have  been  reo:arded  as  the  fore- 
most  man  in  the  conquest.  But  when  spite 
dogged  Fremont  home,  and  jealousy  attempted 
to  crush  him,  the  people  pronounced  him  the 
genuine  "  conqueror  of  California,"  and  only 
narrowly  missed,  a  few  years  later,  making  him 
President  of  the  United  States. 


214  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFOENIA. 


CHAPTER    XVn. 

SAN  FRANCISCO  AMERICANIZED. 

Califoknia  is  to  be  congratulated  on  its  nar- 
row escape  from  a  Mormon  element  in  its  popu- 
i«i7.  lation,  at  a  time  when  every  ship-load  of  people 
told  with  great  power  upon  the  shaping  character 
of  the  State.  A  company  of  Mormons, from  New 
York,  under  the  leadershij)  of  Samuel  Bran  nan, 
arrived  at  Yerba  Buena  on  the  31st  of  July,  1 846, 
pitched  their  tents  at  the  foot  of  the  sand-hills, 
and  fortunately  fell  soon  to  quarrelling.  Their 
dissensions  ran  so  high  that  many  of  their  lead- 
ers seceded.  Then  followed  a  lawsuit  and  a 
jury -trial  (the  first  in  the  Territory),  of  which 
Brannan,  who  had  been  much  reviled  for  allesjed 
misdeeds  in  the  office  of  president  of  the  asso- 
ciation, was  the  winner.  These  proceedings 
prevented  the  settlement  of  the  Mormons  as  a 
community  in  the  neighborhood.  The  ties  that 
bound  them  to2:ether  were  broken.  Some  of 
them  joined  Fremont's  battalion ;  some  of 
them  went  into  trade.  Afterwards,  most  who 
retained  their  Mormon  faith  were  seduced  over 
the  Sierras  by  the   news  of  gold  discoveries 


THE  TOWN  OF  YEKBA  BFENA.         215 

alDout  the  Salt  Lake,  and  so  California  escaped  chap. 
the  curse  of  Mormonism.  [^ 

This  little  town  of  Yerba  Buena,  as  people  184T. 
persisted  in  calling  it  until  January,  1847,  had,  by 
that  time,  grown  to  be  a  post  of  three  hundred 
inhabitants  and  about  fifty  adobe  houses,  and  was 
indulging  in  a  weekly  newspaper,  the  Calif  oimia 
Stiw,  published  by  Mr.  Brannan,  and  edited  by 
Dr.  E.  P.  Jones.  Three  months  later  it  had  a 
second  paper,  Messrs.  Colton  and  Semple's  Cali- 
fornian^  which  was  the  pioneer  in  the  country 
(having  started  at  Monterey,  August  15,  1846), 
being  transferred  to  the  more  thrifty  settlement. 

That  change  of  name,  from  Yerha  Buena 
(good  herb),  which  was  balmy  and  unhack- 
neyed and  unique,  to  San  Francisco,  which 
was  common  and  significant  of  nothing  peculiar, 
was  the  fruit  of  an  ordinance  promulgated  by 
its  fil'st  alcalde ;  and  one  of  its  effects"  was  to 
compel  Mr.  Larkin  and  Mr.  Semple,  who  had 
laid  out  a  city  on  the  Straits  of  Carquinez,  in 
expectation  that  it  would  eventually  prove  the 
chief  city  about  the  bay,  to  change  its  name 
from  Francisca  to  Benicia,  in  honor  of  General 
Vallejo's  wife. 

An  alcalde  had  a  perfect  right  to  change  the 
name,  or,  indeed,  to  do  almost  any  thing  else  that 
he  could  persuade  the  people  to  approve.  He 
could  make  grants  of  building  lots  to  intend- 
ing  settlers,  with   very   uncertain   restrictions, 


216  THE    HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

cnAP.  order  affairs  to  suit  himself,  and  administer  jus- 
■   tice  according  to  liis  own  notions  of  equity.     He 

1847.  was  the    chief   magistrate  under  the  Mexican 
'^°'    laws,  and  as  yet  the  country  enjoyed  no  other 

than  Mexican  laws.  The  first  alcalde  of  San 
Francisco  was  Washington  A.  Bartlett,  who 
did  not  lono;  hold  the  office,  beins;  soon  needed 
on  board  the  naval  vessel  to  which  he  was 
attached  as  lieutenant.  Duvinof  his  adrainistra- 
tion  he  had  Jasper  O'Farrell  survey  and  plan 
the  city.  Bartlett's  temporary  successor  as 
alcalde  was  George  Hyde,  who,  to  judge  from 
the  court  records  of  later  times,  must  have  been 
constantly  occupied  in  making  grants  to  appli. 
Feb.22.  cants.  After  him  came  Edwin  Bryant,  ap- 
pointed by  General  Kearny.  Bryant  had 
crossed  the  Plains  the  year  before,  and  ma- 
terially aided  Fremont  in  raising  his  battalion 
for  the  conquest.  He  continued  briefly  in 
office,  returning  in  June,  with  Kearny's  party, 
to  the  States,  and  publishing  a  valuable  book 
of  his  travels,  entitled  What  I  saw  in  Cali- 
fornia.    The  succeeding  alcaldes  were  George 

1848.  Hyde  (again),  Dr.  J.  Townsend,  Dr.  T.  M. 
Leavenworth,  and  Colonel  J.  AV.  Geary,  who, 
as  he  was  the  last  alcalde,  was  his  own  succes- 
sor and  the  first  mayor  under  the  Americanized 
city  charter. 

It  was  during  Hyde's  second  term  that,  be- 
cause  the   town   business  grew  so  heavy,  an 


1847. 


SUFFERING    OF   THE   EMIQEANTS.  217 

ayuntamiento  or  town  council  was  establisliecl,  chap. 
to  aid  in  conducting  it,  and,  once  established,  it  >_^_, 
continued  until  tlie  boards  of  aldermen  and  i846- 
assistant  aldermen  took  its  place. 

The  San  Franciscans  were  chiefly  Americans, 
and  they  began,  before  1847  was  ended,  to  do 
as  all  Americans  do — to  talk  politics,  to  cele- 
brate Fourth  of  July,  observe  Thanksgiving, 
have  a  steamboat  on  the  bay,  and  take  measures 
for  establishing  a  public  school.  They  were 
fond  of  public  meetings  and  of  uttering  their 
sentiments  in  the  form  of  resolutions.  One  of 
the  earliest  occasions  for  such  a  meeting  during 
the  year  was  notable  for  its  object,  and  most 
creditable  for  its  spirit  and  results.  We  con- 
dense the  story  from  the  narrative  of  Mr.  Bry- 
ant in  his  book  before  alluded  to. 

Of  the  overland  emigration  to  California  in 
1846,  about  eighty  wagons  took  a  new  route, 
from  Fort  Bridger  around  the  south  end  of 
Great  Salt  Lake.  The  pioneers  of  the  party 
arrived  in  good  season  over  the  mountains ;  but 
Mr.  Beed's  and  Mr.  Dormer's  companies  opened 
a  new  route  throu2:h  the  desert,  lost  a  month's 
time  by  their  explorations,  and  reached  the  foot 
of  the  Truckee  Pass,  in  the  Sierra  Nevada,  on 
the  31st  of  October,  instead  of  the  1st,  as  they 
had  intended.  The  snow  bes^an  to  fall  on  the 
mountains  two  or  three  weeks  earlier  than  usual 
that  year,  and  was  already  so  piled  up  in  the 


218  THE    IIISTOPvY    OF    CALIFOKNIA. 

CHAP.  Pass  that  tliey  could  not  proceed.  They  at- 
^]^_^^_,  tempted  it  repeatedly,  but  were  as  often  forced 
1846-  to  return.  One  party  built  their  cabins  near 
'  ■  Truckee  Lake,  killed  their  cattle,  and  went  into 
winter-quarters.  The  other  (Donner's)  party 
still  believ'ed  that  they  could  thread  the  pass, 
and  so  failed  to  build  their  cabins  before  more 
snow  came  and  buried  their  cattle  alive.  Of 
course  these  were  soon  utterly  destitute  of  food, 
for  they  could  not  tell  where  their  cattle  were 
buried,  and  there  was  no  hope  of  game  on  a 
desert  so  piled  with  snow  that  nothing  without 
wings  could  move.  The  number  of  those  who 
were  thus  storm-stayed,  at  the  very  threshold 
of  the  land  whose  winters  are  one  long  spring, 
was  eighty,  of  whom  thirty  were  females,  and 
several  children.  The  Mr.  Donner  who  had 
charge  of  one  company  was  an  Illinoisian,  sixty 
years  of  age,  a  man  of  high  respectability  and 
abundant  means.  His  wife  was  a  woman  of 
education  and  refinement,  and  much  younger 
than  he. 

During  November  it  snowed  thirteen  days; 
during  December  and  January,  eight  days  in 
each.  Much  of  the  time  the  tops  of  the  cabins 
were  below  the  snow  level. 

It  was  six  weeks  after  the  halt  was  made 
that  a  party  of  fifteen,  including  five  women 
and  two  Indians  who  acted  as  guides,  set  out 
on  snow-shoes  to  cross  the  mountains,  and  give 


SUFFEEING  OF  THE  OVEELAND  EI^IIGEANTS.  219 

notice  to  the  people  of  tlie  California  settle-  chap. 

.   .  •  •  XVII 

ments  of  the  condition  of  their  friends.     At  ,_^_i, 
first  the  snow  was  so  lio-ht  and  feathery  that    1846- 

1847 

even  in  snow-shoes  they  sank  nearly  a  foot  at 
every  step.  On  the  second  day  they  crossed 
the  "  divide,"  finding  the  snow  at  the  summit 
twelve  feet  deep.  Pushing  forward  with  the 
coui-age  of  despair,  they  made  from  four  to 
eight  miles  a  day. 

Within  a  week  they  got  entirely  out  of  pro- 
visions, and  three  of  them,  succumbing  to  cold, 
weariness,  and  starvation,  had  died.  Then  a 
heavy  snow-storm  came  on,  which  compelled 
them  to  lie  still,  buried  between  their  blankets 
under  the  snow,  for  thirty-six  hours.  By  the 
evening  of  the  tenth  day  three  more  had  died, 
and  the  living  had  been  four  days  without  food. 
The  horrid  alternative  was  accepted — they  took 
the  flesh  from  the  bones  of  their  dead,  remained  1847. 
in  camp  two  days  to  dry  it,  and  then  pushed  on. 

On  New  Year's,  the  sixteenth  day  since  leav- 
ing Truckee  Lake,  they  were  toiling  up  a  steep 
mountain.  Their  feet  were  frozen.  Every  step 
was  marked  with  blood.  On  the  second  of 
January  their  food  again  gave  out.  On  the 
third,  they  had  nothing  to  eat  but  the  strings 
of  their  snow-shoes.  On  the  fourth,  the  Indians 
eloped,  justly  suspicious  that  they  might  be 
sacrificed  for  food.  On  the  fifth,  they  shot  a 
deer,  and  that  day  one  of  their  number  died. 


220  THE   niSTOEY   OF   CALIFOENIA. 

CHAP.  Soon  tliree  others  died,  and  every  death  now 
eked  out  the  existence  of  the  survivoi's.  On 
1847.  the  seveuteeutli  all  gave  out,  and  concluded 
their  wanderings  useless,  except  one.  He, 
guided  by  two  stray,  friendly  Indians,  dragged 
himself  on  till  he  reached  a  settlement  on  Bear 
River.  By  midnight  the  settlers  had  found 
and  were  treating  with  all  Christian  kindness 
what  remained  of  the  little  company  that,  after 
more  than  a  month  of  the  most  terrible  suffer- 
ings, had  that  morning  halted  to  die. 

The  story  that  there  were  emigrants  perish- 
ing on  the  other  side  of  the  snowy  barrier  ran 
swiftly  down  the  Sacramento  Valley  to  New 
Helvetia,  and  Captain  Sutter,  at  his  own  ex- 
pense, fitted  out  an  expedition  of  men  and  of 
mules  laden  with  provisions,  to  cross  the  moun- 
tains and  relieve  them.  It  ran  on  to  San  Fran- 
cisco, and  the  people,  rallying  in  jDuljlic  meeting, 
raised  fifteen  hundred  dollars,  and  with  it  fitted 
out  another  expedition.  The  naval  commandant 
of  the  port  fitted  out  still  others. 

The  first  of  the  relief  parties  reached  Truckee 
Lake  on  the  19  th  of  February.  Ten  of  the 
people  in  the  nearest  camp  were  dead.  For 
four  weeks  those  who  were  still  alive  had  fed 
only  on  bullocks'  hides.  At  Conner's  camp  they 
kad  but  one  hide  remaiuin":.  The  visitors  left  a 
small  supply  of  provisions  with  the  twenty-nine 
whom  they  could  not  take  with  them,  and  started 


SUFFERING  OF  THE  OVERLAND  EMiaEANTS.         22  1 

back  witli  the  remainder.    Four  of  tlie  cliildreu  chap. 
tliey  carried  on  tlieir  backs.  v— v—' 

Another  of  the  relief  parties  reached  Truckee  1847. 
Lake  on  the  1st  of  March.  They  immediately 
started  back  with  seventeen  of  the  sufferers,  but, 
a  heavy  snow-storm  overtaking  them,  they  left 
all,  except  three  of  the  children,  on  the  road. 
Another  party  went  after  those  who  were  left 
on  the  w^ay,  found  three  of  them  dead,  and  the 
rest  sustaining  life  by  feeding  on  the  flesh  of 
the  dead. 

The  last  relief  party  reached  Donner's  camp 
late  in  April,  when  the  snows  had  melted  so 
much  that  the  earth  appeared  in  spots.  The 
main  cabin  was  empty,  but  some  miles  distant 
they  found  the  last  sun^ivor  of  all,  lying  on  the 
cabin-floor  smoking  his  pipe.  He  was  ferocious 
in  aspect,  savage  and  repulsive  in  manner.  His 
camp-kettle  was  over  the  fire,  and  in  it  his  meal 
of  human  flesh  preparing.  The  stripped  bones 
of  his  fellow- sufferers  lay  around  him.  He  re- 
fused to  return  with  the  party,  and  only  con- 
sented when  he  saw  that  there  was  no  escape. 

Mi's.  Donner  was  the  last  to  die.  Her  hus- 
band's body,  carefully  laid  out  and  wrapped  in 
a  sheet,  was  found  at  his  tent.  Circumstances 
led  to  the  suspicion  that  the  survivor  had  killed 
Mrs.  Donner  for  her  flesh  and  her  money,  and 
when  he  was  threatened  with  hana-inor,  and  the 
rope  tightened  around  his  neck,  he  produced 


222  THE   HISTOHY   OF   CALIFOENIA. 

CHAP,  over  five  hundred  dollars  in  gold,  whicli  proba- 
^_J^  bly  lie  had  appropriated  from  her  store. 
1847.  "When  General  Kearny  returned  to  the  East, 
in  June,  1847,  he  halted  at  the  scene  of  these 
terrible  sufferings.  By  his  orders  the  mum- 
mied remains  of  the  dead  were  buried,  and  all 
the  relics  of  the  cabins  gathered  and  burned. 
Of  the  eighty  who  were  thus  arrested  at  the 
eastern  foot  of  the  Truckee  Pass,  forty-four 
were  saved,  of  whom  twenty-two  were  females. 
Thirty-six  perished. 

Another  subject  which  a  public  meeting  was 
called  in  San  Francisco  to  consider  was  the  de- 
throned idol  of  the  populace,  Fremont.  That 
distinguished  ex-governor  left  a  people  behind 
him  divided  as  to  his  merits.  It  was  presumed 
that  California  would  soon  be  erected  by  Con- 
gress into  a  territory  of  the  United  States,  and 
a  petition  was  in  circulation  asking  the  Presi- 
dent to  appoint  Fremont  as  its  governor.  This 
petition  had  been  numerously 'signed  at  the 
South,  for  there  he  was  popular.  His  treaty 
of  Couenga,  the  easy  terms  he  had  allowed  to 
those  who  broke  their  parole,  all  his  intercourse 
with  the  first  families  of  the  country,  made  him 
a  favorite. 

But  when  the  petition  came  North  it  was  the 
signal  for  an  angry  controversy.  Fremont's 
most  bitter  enemies  were  his  lately  devoted  sol- 
diers,  the   disbanded    battalion    of    mounted 


INDIGNANT   AT  FEEMONT.  223 

riflemen,  and  those  whom  lie  had  favored  with  chap. 
contracts.  He  was  in  arrears  to  the  latter  for  _^_, 
his  army  outfit  and  supplies,  and  to  the  volun-  1847. 
teers  for  their  pay.  Personally,  he  had  no 
funds  to  draw  upon.  Kearny  would  not 
strain  a  point  to  relieve  the  embarrassment  of 
one  who  had  denied  his  authority,  nor  would 
Mason  either  employ  the  ample  resources  of 
the  country  to  pay  debts  contracted  before 
his  day,  or  without  the  previous  sanction  of 
Congress  grant-warrants  upon  the  Treasury. 
Kearny's  repudiation  of  him,  and  Mason's  re- 
fusal to  recognize  the  authority  of  "  the  Path- 
finder," led  the  malcontents  to  feel  -that  he  was 
not  simply  a  penniless  debtor,  but  a  swindler 
as  well.  So  they  called  a  public  meeting — 
there  is  no  surer  sign  that  they  were  thoroughly 
Americanized — and  expressed  their  indignation. 
The  meeting  appointed  a  committee  to  investi- 
gate and  publish  all  reliable  instances  of  his 
misconduct,  and  by  resolution  protested  against 
his  appointment  as  governor. 

Meanwhile  the  subject  of  all  this  indignation, 
dispirited  and  unhappy,  was  about  a  month  on 
his  way  across  the  plains,  whose  pathless  deserts 
and  difficult  passes  he  had  done  more  than  any 
other  man  to  describe  and  map.  He  who  had 
always  been  foremost  of  his  company,  rode  now 
behind  and  in  disgrace. 

San  Francisco  was  fast  outgrowing  in  impor- 


224  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFOENIA. 

CHAP,  tance  the  older  towns  of  tlie  coast.  In  Marcli, 
1848,  its  population  numbered  over  eight  huu- 

1848.  dred.  Two  wharves  were  being  constructed. 
^''^'^'  A  public  school  had  been  opened.  The  unoc- 
cupied fifty-vara  lots,  into  which  O'Farrell's 
survey  divided  the  land  north  of  Market  Street, 
were  granted  by  the  alcalde  to  any  wlio  peti- 
tioned for  them  and  paid,  including  the  cost  of 
recording,  sixteen  dollars  a  lot ;  while  those 
southerly  of  Market  Street,  each  by  the  sur- 
vey one  hundred  varas  square,  cost  to  the 
petitioner  twenty-nine  dollars.  The  city,  on 
the  maps,  embraced  Telegraph  and  Rincon 
Hills,  the  land  between,  and  the  area  west- 
ward to  about  two  miles  from  the  water- 
front. Yet  really  it  nestled  along  the  beach, 
and  encroached  very  little  either  on  the  sand- 
hills or  the  rocky  heights  that  overhang  the 
bay.  But  there  was  already  about  it  the  busy 
hum  of  an  American  town.  All  felt  that  its 
rapid  growth  was  predestined.  It  must  soon 
become  a  notable  mart.  Every  week  added  to 
its  population.  Its  thrift  was  the  theme  of 
every  day's  discourse. 

Suddenly  its  streets  were  deserted,  its  busi- 

June.  ness  stopped,  its  infant  commerce  was  paralyzed. 
The  desertion  was  as  instant  and  complete  as 
if  a  pestilence  had  swept  over  the  peninsula — 
and  not  in  San  Francisco  alone,  but  every 
little  village  in  the  province  shared   the  sud- 


SUDDEN  DEPOPULATION  OF  THE  TOWNS.    225 

den  depopulation.  Tlie  people  were  all  flying  chap. 
eastward  and  northward,  to  tlie  foot-hills  of  the  ,_^ 
Sierra  Nevada !  1848. 

The  Californian  issued  an  extra,  apologizing  ^^®' 
for  the  non-appearance  of  its  regular  edition. 
"  The  whole  country,"  said  its  editor  in  his  fare- 
well, "  from  San  Francisco  to  Los  Angeles,  re- 
sounds with  the  sordid  cry  of  '  Gold.'  "  The 
California  Star  held  out  a  fortnight  longer, 
when,  everybody  in  his  office  having  deserted 
him,  the  editor  announced  that  he  must  stop 
its  issue. 

15 


226  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFOEITIA. 


CHAPTER  XVm. 

THE   DISCOVERT    OF    GOLD. 

Gold  was  discovered  at  Coloraa,  on  the  Amer- 
1848.  ^^^^^  Kiver,  January  19tli,  1848,  and  the  most 
Jan.  19  skej^tical  and  phlegmatic,  by  the  middle  of  the 
following  spring,  were  yielding  to  its  attrac- 
tions. Governor  Mason  left  Monterey  on  the 
17th  of  June  to  visit  the  place,  and  the  account 
that  he  wrote  home  to  the  War  Department 
created  a  great  sensation. 

He  alleged  that  the  land  was  full  of  gold. 
"I  have  no  hesitation  in  saying,"  he  wrote, 
"  that  there  is  more  gold  in  the  country  drained 
by  the  Sacramento  and  San  Joaquin  Kivers, 
than  will  pay  the  costs  of  the  late  war  iu  Mex- 
ico a  hundred  times  over.  Nearly  all  the  Mor- 
mons," he  added,  "  are  leaving  California  to  go 
to  Salt  Lake,  and  this  they  surely  ^vould  not 
do  unless  they  were  sure  of  finding  gold  there 
in  the  same  abundance  as  they  now  do  on  the 
Sacramento." 

This  was  remarked  as  if  quite  incidentally ; 
but  to  many  people  at  the  East,  the  governor 


227 
knew  that  the  departure  of  the  Mormons  out  ^:M^^; 

^  XVIII. 

of  the  land  would  be  scarcely  less  welcome  news  — ^ — 
than  the  mineral  discoveries.  Again,  but  not  i^^^- 
as  if  the  matter  much  affected  him,  Governor 
Mason  mentioned  a  visit  to  the  New  Almaden 
quicksilver  mine  of  Alexander  Forbes,  the  Brit- 
ish Consul.  The  mining  world  appreciated  the 
point,  and  observed  that  quicksilver,  so  necert- 
sary  to  every  gold-miner,  was  produced  abun- 
dantly within  easy  reach  of  the  gold-fields. 
Finally,  the  governor  said,  "  No  capital  is  re- 
(j^uired  to  obtain  the  gold,  as  the  laboring-man 
wants  nothing  but  his  pick  and  shovel,  and  tin 
pan,  with  which  to  dig  and  w^ash  the  gravel, 
and  many  frequently  pick  gold  out  of  the  crev- 
ices of  rocks  with  their  butcher-knives,  in  pieces 
of  from  one  to  six  ounces  ! '' 

The  party  in  the  States  which  had  opposed 
the  Administration  of  Mr.  Polk  in  the  Mexican 
w^ar,  ridiculed  mercilessly  the  whole  story  of 
the  gold  discovery.  This  last  statement,  they 
thou2:ht,  must  break  the  back  of  the  camel 
credulity.  It  was  too  much  like  reproducing 
one  of  De  Foe's  imaginary  adventures  in  South 
America,  to  be  for  one  moment  believed  by 
sober  men  on  the  Atlantic  slope. 

Yet  it  was  substantially  and  literally  true. 
Let  us  follow  the  governor  on  his  tour,  as  de- 
tailed in  his  letter  to  the  War  Department : — 

He  found  San  Francisco  deserted  of  nearly 


228         THE  inSTORT  OF  CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  all  its  male  inhiibitants^  and  even  females  were 
very  scarce  there.     Between  Sonoma  and  Sut- 

1848.  ter's  Fort  the  mills  were  idle ;  the  fields  of 
""^'  wheat  open  to  cattle ;  the  houses  vacant ;  the 
farms  going  to  waste.  At  Sutter's  there  was 
much  life  and  bustle.  Flour  was  selling  at 
thirty-six  dollars  a  barrel,  and  the  captain  was 
carefully  gathering  his  crops  of  wheat,  estimated 
at  forty  thousand  bushels.  Several  stores  had 
been  established,  and  a  hotel  erected.  Cargoes 
were  beino;  diseharo-ed  at  the  river-side,  and 
carts  were  hauling  goods  to  the  fort.  The  cap- 
tain had  two  mechanics  in  his  employ,  to  each 
of  whom  he  paid  ten  dollars  a  day.  A  two- 
story  house  in  the  fort  was  rented  as  a  hotel,  at 
five  hundred  dollars  a  month. 

July.  On  the  5th  of  July  he  2:>ushed  up  the  Amer- 
ican fork  of  the  Sacramento  some  twenty-five 
miles,  where  he  found  a  mining  camp  in  full 
operation.  Canvas  tents  and  arbors  of  bushes 
strewed  the  hill-side.  There  was  a  store 
opened,  and  several  shanties  were  used  as 
boarding-houses.  The  sun  poured  down  its 
rays  with  intense  heat  upon  two  hundred  miners 
working  for  gold,  some  using  tin  pans,  some 
Indian  baskets,  and  some  rude  cradles.  Going 
farther  up  the  American,  he  reached  the  spot, 
fifty  miles  above  Sutter's  Fort,  where  the  gold 
was  first  found. 

The  people  at  work  there  were  averaging 


PEEVIOUS  EEPOETS  OF  GOLD  DISCOVEEIES.  229 

from  one  to  three  ounces  of  gold  a  day.     At  chap. 

XVIIL 

eight  miles  above  Weber's  Creek,  the  governor  _^_ 
was  shown  a  small  gutter  where  two  men  had  1848. 
taken  out  seventeen  thousand  dollars  worth  of 
gold.  At  the  end  of  one  week's  work  they  had 
paid  off  their  party  of  hired  men  and  found  ten 
thousand  dollars  worth  left  in  their  hands.  He 
saw  a  small  ravine  out  of  which  twelve  thou- 
sand dollars  had  been  taken.  "  Hundreds  of 
similar  ravines,  to  all  appearances,  were  as  yet 
untouched."  Men  who  were  getting  fifty  dol- 
lars a  day  were  leaving  because  they  could  do 
better  at  other  places.  Three  miles  above  Sut- 
ter's, on  the  American,  he  met  a  Mr.  Sinclair, 
who  employed  fifty  Indians  for  five  weeks,  and 
showed,  as  his  net  proceeds,  gold  to  the  value 
of  sixteen  thousand  dollars:  the  last  week's 
results  were  fourteen  pounds  avoirdupois  of  gold. 
A  soldier  got  a  furlough  of  twenty  days  from 
the  artillery  company  to  which  he  belonged. 
He  spent  most  of  it  in  travelling,  but  one  week 
in  mining,  during  which  week  he  made  fifteen 
hundred  dollars — more  than  all  his  pay,  clothes, 
and  rations  for  the  five  years  of  his  enlistment. 
All  prices  were  enormous,  of  course,  yet 
the  treasure  was  so  plenty  that  even  Indians 
could  sport  gaudily-colored  dresses.  The  most 
moderate  estimate  that  the  governor  could 
obtain  was,  that  four  thousand  men  were  work- 
ing in  the  gold  district,  more  than  half  of  whom 


230  THE   HISTOKY   OF   CALIFORTaA. 

CHAP,  were  Indians,  and  tliat  from  thirty  thousand  to 
xvni.  ^£^y  thousand  dollars  worth  of  gold  were  taken 
1848.  out  daily.  Astonishing  to  relate,  crime  was  in- 
frequent in  the  mines.  There  were  no  thefts 
or  robberies,  tliough  all  lived  in  tents  or  bush 
arbors,  or  in  the  open  air,  and  the  workmen 
frequently  had  thousands  of  dollars  worth  of 
dust  about  theii'  persons. 

Such  statements  as  these,  comins^  from  an 
official  source,  and  presented  to  Congress  with 
the  report  of  the  Secretary  of  War,  could  not 
but  stir  the  country  to  its  remotest  corners. 

In  Hakluyt's  account  of  Drake's  visit  to  the 
California  coast,  in  1579,  occm's  the  following 
statement  concernins;  its  mineral  wealth : — 
"  There  is  no  part  of  the  earth  here  to  be  taken 
up  wherein  there  is  not  a  reasonable  quantity 
of  gold  and  silver."  There  is  little  reason  to 
believe  that  this  assertion  was  based  upon  any 
knowledge  of  the  fact  averred.  Yet  the  Span- 
iards and  Mexicans  who  visited  the  Californias 
saw  the  indications  of  gold  in  the  soih  In  the 
vicinity  of  the  Colorado  they  found  the  precious 
metal  itself.  So,  though  they  did  not  find  it 
in  paying  quantities,  the  impression  went  abroad 
that  it  was  a  mineral  region,  and  a  vague  sus- 
picion of  the  truth  perhaps  crossed  the  minds 
of  American  politicians  who  plotted  and  log- 
rolled to  annex  a  slice  of  Mexico  to  the  Union. 
Indeed,  President  Polk,  in  his  Message  of  1 848, 


HOW    THE    GOLD    WAS    FOUND.  231 

said  that  it  was  known  tliat  mines  of  precious  chap. 
metals  existed  to  a  considerable  extent  in  Cali- 
fornia at  the  time  of  its  acquisition.  1848. 

But  Alexander  Forbes,  in  1835,  wrote,  "No 
minerals  of  particular  importance  have  yet  been 
found  in  Upper  California,  nor  any  ores  of 
metals;"  and  speaking  of  Hijar's  emigrants  who 
arrived  in  1833,  he  said  there  were  among  them 
"  goldsmiths,  proceeding  to  a  country  where  no 
gold  existed." 

There  are  reports  that  silver  was  discovered 
in  Alizal,  Monterey  County,  in  1802,  and  gold 
in  San  Isidro,  San  Diego  County,  in  1828.  A 
place  on  the  San  Francisquito  Canon,  forty-iive 
miles  northward  from  Los  Angeles,  discovered 
in  1838,  was  worked  till  1848,  yielding  an 
average  of  six  thousand  dollars  a  year.  These 
meagre  hints  of  the  pi'esence  of  precious  metals 
were  only  sufficient  to  warm  the  fancy  of  san- 
guine prophets  of  the  future  of  the  land,  but  * 
they  did  not  affect  the  popular  sentiment  or 
excite  general  attention. 

The  wonder  is  now  that  the  discovery  was 
not  earlier  made.  Emigrants,  settlers,  hunters, 
practical  miners,  scientific  exploring  parties  had 
camped  on,  settled  in,  hunted  through,  dug  in, 
and  explored  the  region,  and  could  not  see  it. 
Professor  Dana,  the  geologist  of  Wilkes's  ex- 
ploring expedition,  did  say  that  gold  rocks  and 
veins  of  quartz  were  observed  by  him  in  1843, 


232  THE  HISTORY   OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  near  the  Umpqua  River  in  Oregon,  and  pebbles 
^_  ■  from  similar  rocks  were  met  with  along  the 
1848.  shores  of  the  Sacramento ;  and  when  speaking 
of  places  Avhere  gold  was  to  be  found,  he  men- 
tions "  California,  between  the  SieiTa  Nevada 
and  the  Sacramento  and  San  Joaquin  Rivers." 
But  it  is  very  doubtful  whether  it  occurred  to 
Professor  Dana  that  there  was  gold  to  be  found 
here  in  quantities  that  would  ever  get  into  more 
practical  use  than  to  lie  as  rare  specimens  be- 
hind plate-glass  doors  in  the  mineralogical  cab- 
inets of  the  colleges. 

The  discovery  was  entirely  accidental.     Cap- 
tain   Sutter   had   contracted   with   James   W. 
I  Marshall,  in  September,  1847,  for  the  construc- 
I  tion  of  a  saw-mill  at   Coloma.     In  the  course 
I    of  the  winter  a  dam  and  race  were  made,  but 
I    when  the  water  was  let  on,  the  tail-race  was  too 
I    narrow.     To  widen  and  deepen  it,  Marshall  let 
a  strong  current  of  water  directly  into  the  race, 
which  bore  a  large  body  of  mud  and  gravel  to 
the  foot. 
Jan.iP.      On  the  19th  of  January,  1840,  Marshall  ob- 
served  some   glittering   particles   in  the  race, 
which  he  was  curious  enough  to  examine.     He 
called  five  carpenters  who  were  at  work  on  the 
mill  to  see  them,  but  though  they  talked  over 
the  possibility  of  its  being  gold,  the  vision  did 
not   inflame   them.      Peter   L.  Weimar  claims 
that  he  was  with  Marshall  when  the  first  piece 


HOW   THE   GOLD    WAS   DISCOVERED.  233 

of  the  "  yellow  stuff"  was  picked  up.     It  was  chap. 
...  •  xvin 

a  pebble  weigliing  six  penny  weights  and  eleven  ^_^_J, 

grains.     Marshall  gave  it  to  Mrs.  AVeimar,  and    184S. 

asked  her  to  boil  it  in  saleratus  water  and  see 

what  came  of  it.     As  she  was  making  soap  at 

the  time,  she  pitched  it  into   the  soap-kettle. 

About   twenty-four   hours   afterwards   it   was 

fished  out  and  found  all  the  brighter  for  its 

boiling. 

Marshall,  two  or  three  weeks  later,  took  the 
specimens  below,  and  gave  them  to  Sutter 
to  have  them  tested.  Before  Sutter  had  quite 
satisfied  himself  as  to  their  nature,  he  went  up 
to  the  mill,  and  with  Marshall  made  a  treaty 
with  the  Indians,  buying  of  them  their  titles  to 
the  re2:ion  round  about,  for  a  certain  amount  of 
goods.  There  was  an  effort  made  to  keep  the 
secret  inside  the  little  circle  that  knew  it,  but 
it  soon  leaked  out.  They  had  many  misgiv. 
ings  and  much  discussion  whether  they  were 
not  making  themselves  ridiculous,  yet  by  com- 
mon consent  all  began  to  hunt,  though  with  no 
great  spirit,  for  the  "  yellow  stuff "  that  might 
prove  such  a  prize. 

In  February,  one  of  the  party  went  to  Yerba  Feb. 
Buena,  taking  some  of  the  dust  with  him. 
Fortunately  he  stumbled  upon  Isaac  Humphrey, 
an  old  Georgian  gold-miner,  who,  at  the  first 
look  at  the  specimens,  said  they  were  gold,  and 
that   the  diggings  must  be  rich.      Humphrey 


234  THE   HISTOEY    OF   CALITOEOTA. 

CHAP,  tried  to  induce  some  of  his  friends  to  go  up 
^_.^_^  with  liim  to  the  mill,  but  they  thought  it  a 
1848.  crazy  expedition,  and  left  him  to  go  alone.  He 
^'''''^'-  reached  there  on  the  7th  of  March.  A  few 
were  hunting  for  gold,  but  rather  lazily,  and  the 
work  on  the  mill  went  on  as  usual.  Next  day 
he  began  "  prospecting,"  and  soon  satisfied  him- 
self that  he  had  struck  a  rich  placer.  He  made 
a  rocker,  and  then  commenced  work  in  earnest. 
A  few  days  later  a  Frenchman,  Baptiste, 
formerly  a  miner  in  Mexico,  left  the  lumber  he 
was  sawing  for  Sutter  at  Weber's,  ten  miles 
east  of  Coloma,  and  came  to  the  mill.  He 
agreed  with  Humphrey  that  the  region  was  rich, 
and  like  him  took  to  the  pan  and  the  rocker. 
These  two  men  were  the  competent  practical 
teachers  of  the  crowd  that  flocked  in  to  see 
how  they  did  it.  The  lesson  was  easy,  the 
process  simple.  An  houi''s  observation  fitted 
the  least  experienced  for  working  to  advan- 
tage. 


GEAND   RUSH   TO    CALIFORNIA.  285 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

GRAND  RUSH  TO  CALIFORNIA. 

About  a  montli  after  tlie  gold  discovery,  but  ^4^- 
before  it  was  miicli  bruited,  an  armistice  be-  — , — - 
tween  the  Uuited  States  and  Mexico  was  as^reed   \?*,^- 

•^  Feb. 

upon.  The  treaty  of  peace  which  followed  was 
ratified  by  the  United  States  in  March,  by 
Mexico  in  May. 

The  news  reached  California  late  in  the  sum-  Aug. 
mer,  and  was  honored  with  illuminations,  the 
explosion  of  some  gunpowder,  and  processions. 
The  terms  of  the  treaty  were  satisfactoiy  to  the 
war  party.  In  consideration  of  the  assumption 
by  the  United  States  of  the  Mexican  debt  to 
American  subjects,  and  of  fifteen  millions  of 
money,  the  free  navigation  of  the  Colorado,  from 
the  mouth  of  the  Gila  to  the  Gulf,  and  of  the 
Gulf  itself,  and  all  right  and  title  to  Texas,  New 
Mexico  and  Upper  California  were  ceded  to 
the  United  States.  Lower  California,  much  to 
the  disgust  of  Captain  Halleck  and  other  mili- 
tary men,  who  had  been  at  pains  to  hold  it  while 
the  war  lasted,  was  left  with  Mexico.  It  was 
despised  as  an  arid,  barren,  worthless  peninsuhi. 


236  THE  HISTORY   OF   CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP.  The  opponents  of  the  Administration  held  the 
._^,_[,  treaty  to  be  a  very  fit  conclusion  for  a  demdr- 
1848.  alizing  and  unnecessary  war.  It  paid  an  enor- 
mous price,  they  said,  for  what  we  were  a  great 
deal  better  without.  It  annexed  an  immense 
territory  that  we  did  not  need,  and,  worst  fea- 
ture of  all,  that  territory  was  populous  with 
Indians,  of  whom  we  had  more  on  our  hands 
than  we  had  yet  learned  to  take  care  of,  and 
with  drowsy  Mexicans,  who  never  could  be 
worked  over  into  American  citizens,  or  brought 
into  harmony  with  American  ideas.  If  they 
knew  it,  they  gave  little  heed  to  the  fact  that 
there  were  already  from  twelve  to  fifteen  thou- 
sand whites  in  California,  and  there  was  no 
seer  to  foretell  the  revolution  that  was  al)out  to 
sweep  through  every  settlement  in  the  Union, 
when  the  news  should  reach  it  of  how  those 
whites  in  California  were  employing  them- 
selves. 

The  story  of  the  great  gold  discoveries  in 
California  crept  slowly  into  the  faith  of  the 
people  of  the  Union,  but  once  there,  the  whole 
lump  was  soon  leavened.  The  President  in- 
dorsed, in  a  measure,  the  truth  of  the  reports 
of  army  and  navy  officers  on  the  Pacific  coast, 
by  sending  them  with  the  documents  accom- 
panying his  message  to  Congress.  They  were 
printed  in  the  newspapers,  and  became  the 
topic  of  Congressional  debate,  and  soon  every 


THE   ETJSH   TO    CALIFOKNIA.  23Y 

rural  district  was  echoins^  those  debates.     Spe-  ^:^^- 

.     .  .  •   .  XIX. 

cimens  of  the  gold  were  exhibited  in  the  cities,  — .-^ 
inflainino:  the  imasflnation  of  the  coolest.  The  i^'^^- 
whole  land  experienced  a  new  sensation. 

Some  of  the  New  York  papers  said  the  gold  1848. 
was  mica;  but  as  an  offset  to  these  opinions 
was  the  announcement  of  Director  Patterson, 
of  the  Philadelphia  Mint,  that  the  first  deposits 
of  erold  from  California  were  worth  eio-hteen 
dollars  and  five  and  a  half  cents  per  ounce. 
Colonel  Benton  said  in  the  Senate :  "  I  am  a  1849. 
friend  to  a  gold  currency,  but  not  to  gold  min-  ^°'  * 
ing.  .  .  I  regret  that  we  have, these  mines  in  Cal- 
ifornia, but  they  are  there,  and  I  am  for  getting 
rid  of  them  as  soon  as  possible."  Again  he 
said,  "  The  gold  in  these  washings  is  a  tempo- 
rary ci'op — a  mine  is  one  thing,  a  wash  is  anoth- 
er." The  gold  washings  of  California,  orjylacer.f 
— called  so,  he  said,  from  the  Latin  placere,  to 
please,  because  there  was  a  very  lively  short- 
lived pleasure  experienced  when  a  man  finds 
one  of  them — were  marvellously  rich,  yet  not  so 
rich  as  those  of  Brazil,  a  hundred  years  ago, 
which  were  exhausted  so  long  since  that  all  mem- 
ory of  them  is  lost. 

But  soon  the  California  fever  was  rao^ino;  like 
an  epidemic  in  every  section — even  in  those 
I'are  spots  whore  migration  was  discouraged  by 
the  example  of  a  couple  of  centuries,  it  swept 
through  like  an  influenza.     High  and  low,  rich 


238  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALEFOENIA. 

CHAP,  and  poor  took  it.     Tliey  could   actually  pick 
^_^  the  gold  out  from  the  crevices  of  the  rocks  with 
1848-  their  knives !     Then  it  required  no  more  capi- 
^^'   tal  to  get  all  the  gold  that  a  modest  man  ought 
to  wish,  than  one's  passage-money  and  his  bare 
living  at  the  mines !     Had  a  family  man  the 
right  to  plod  all  his  life,  and  die  at  last  leaving 
those  dependent  on  him  with  a  mere  pittance, 
when  a  little  energy,  or  a  year  or  two  of  "  rough- 
ing it  in  the  mines,"  would  give  him,  and  those 
he  lived  for,  a  competency  ? 

Before  such  considerations  as  these,  the  con- 
servatism of  the  most  stable  bent.  Men  of 
small  means,  whose  tastes  inclined  them  to 
keep  out  of  all  hazardous  schemes  and  uncer- 
tain enterprises,  thought  they  saw  duty  beck- 
oning them  around  the  Horn,  or  across  the 
plains.  In  many  a  family  circle,  where  nothing 
but  the  strictest  economy  could  make  the  two 
ends  of  the  year  meet,  there  were  long  and  anx- 
ious consultations,  which  resulted  in  selling  off 
a  piece  of  the  homestead  or  of  the  woodland,  or 
the  choicest  of  the  stock,  to  fit  out  one  sturdy 
I'epresentative  to  make  a  fortune  for  the  family. 
Hundreds  of  farms  were  mortgaged  to  buy  tick- 
ets to  the  land  of  gold.  Some  insured  their 
lives  and  pledged  their  i)olicies  for  an  outfit. 
The  wild  boy  was  packed  off  hopefully.  Thw 
black  sheep  of  the  flock  was  dismissed  with  a 
blessing,  and   the  forlorn   hope  that,  with   a 


THE    EUSn    TO    CALIFORISTA.  239 

clianire  of  skies,  there  miorlit  be  a  change  of  chap. 
manners.     The  stay  of  the  happy   household  ,1.^_ 
said,  "  Good-by,  but  only  for  a  year  or  two,"    i849. 
to  his  charge.       Unhappy   husbands   availed 
themselves  cheerfully  of  this  cheap  and  repu- 
table method  of  divorce,  trusting  time  to  mend 
or  mar  matters  in  their  absence.     Here  was  a 
chance  to  bes-in  life  anew.     Whoever  had  be- 
gun  it  badly,  or  made  slow  headway  on  the 
risrht  course,  mio-ht  start  as^ain  in  a  reo-ion  where 
Fortune  had  not  learned  to  coquette  with  and 
dupe  her  wooers. 

The  adventurers  generally  formed  companies^ 
expecting  to  go  overland  or  by  sea  to  the  mines, 
and  to  dissolve  partnership  only  after  a  first 
trial  of  luck  together  in  the  "diggings."  In 
the  Eastern  and  Middle  States  they  would  buy 
up  an  old  whaling-ship,  just  ready  to  be  con 
demned  to  the  wreckers,  put  in  a  cargo  of  such 
stuff  as  they  must  need  themselves,  and  pro- 
visions, tools,  or  goods,  that  must  be  sure  to 
bring  returns  enough  to  make  the  venture  prof- 
itable. Of  course,  the  whole  fleet  rushing  in 
together  through  the  Golden  Gate,  made  most 
of  these  ventures  profitless,  even  when  the  guess 
was  happy  as  to  the  kind  of  supplies  needed 
by  the  Californians.  It  can  hardly  be  believed 
what  sieves  of  shij)s  started,  and  how  many  of 
them  actually  made  the  voyage.  Little  river- 
steamers,  that  had  scarcely  tasted  salt  water  be- 


240  THE   HISTOEY   OF    CALIFORNIA. 

fore,  were  fitted  out  to  tliread  tlie  Straits  of 
Magellan,  and  tliese  were  welcomed  to  the  bays 
1849.  and  rivers  of  California,  whose  waters  some  of 
them  ploughed  and  vexed  busily  for  years 
afterwards. 

Then  steamers,  as  well  as  all  manner  of  sail- 
ing vessels,  began  to  be  advertised  to  run  to  the 
Isthmus ;  and  they  generally  went  crowded  to 
excess  with  passengers,  some  of  whom  were 
fortunate  enough,  after  the  toilsome  ascent  of 
the  Chagres  River,  and  the  descent  either  on 
mules  or  on  foot  to  Panama,  not  to  be  detained 
more  than  a  month  waiting  for  the  crafts  that 
had  rounded  the  Horn,  and  by  which  they  were 
ticketed  to  proceed  to  San  Francisco.  But 
hundreds  broke  down  under  the  horrors  of 
the  voyage  in  the  steerage,  contracted  on  the 
Isthmus  the  low  typhoid  fevers  incident  to 
tropical  marshy  regions,  and  died. 

The  overland  emigrants,  unless  they  came 
too  late  in  the  season  to  the  Sierras,  seldom 
suffered  as  much,  as  they  had  no  great  variation 
of  climate  on  their  route.  They  had  this  ad- 
vantage, too,  that  the  mines  lay  at  the  end  of 
their  long  road,  while  the  sea  faring,  when  they 
landed,  had  still  a  weary  journey  before  them. 
Few  tamed  longer  at  San  Francisco  than  was 
necessary  to  learn  how  utterly  useless  were  the 
curious  patent  mining  contrivances  they  had 
brought,  and  to  replace  them  with  the  pick, 


THE    RUSH   TO    CALIFOENIA.  241 


shovel,  pan,  and  cradle.     If  any  one  found  liim-  ckap, 
self  destitute  of  funds  to  go  farther,  there  was  ,_^ 
work  enough  to  raise  them  by.      Labor  was    i849. 
honorable,  and  the  daintiest  dandy,  if  he  were 
honest,  could  not  resist  the  temptation  to  work 
where  wages  were  so  high,  pay  so  prompt,  and 
employers  so  flush. 

There  were  not  lacking  in  San  Francisco 
grumblers  who  had  tried  the  mines  and  satis- 
fied themselves  that  it  cost  about  a  dollar's 
worth  of  sweat  and  time,  and  living  exclusively 
on  bacon,  beans,  and  "slap-jacks,"  to  pick  a  dol- 
lar's worth  of  gold  out  of  rock,  or  river-bed,  or 
dry  ground  ;  Ijut  they  confessed  that  the  good 
luck  which  they  nev^er  enjoyed,  abode  with 
others.  Then  the  display  of  dust,  slugs,  and 
bars  of  gold  in  the  public  gambling-places — the 
sight  of  men  arriving  every  day  freighted  with 
belt^  full,  which  they  parted  with  so  freely  as 
men  only  can  when  they  have  got  it  easily — the 
testimony  of  the  miniature  rocks — the  solid 
nuggets  brought  down  from  above  every  few 
days,  whose  size  and  value  rumor  multiplied 
according  to  the  number  of  her  tongues — the 
talk  day  and  night  unceasingly  and  exclusively 
of  "gold,  easy  to  get  and  hard  to  hold,"  in- 
flamed all  new-comers  with  the  desire  to  hurry 
on  and  share  the  chances.  They  chafed  at  the 
necessary  detentions.  They  nervously  feared 
that  all  would  be  gone  before  they  should  arrive. 


16 


242  THE  HISTOEY    OF   CALIFOETTIA. 


CFTAP.  The  prevalent  impression  \lls,  that  the  placers 
would  give  out  in  a  year  or  two.  Then  it  be- 
1849.  hooved  him  ^vho  expected  to  gain  much  to  be 
among  the  earliest  on  the  ground.  Where  ex- 
periment was  so  fresh  in  the  field,  one  theory 
was  about  as  good  as  another.  An  hypothesis 
that  lured  men  perpetually  farther  up  the 
gorges  of  the  foot-hills,  and  to  explore  the 
canons  of  the  mountains,  was  this:  that  the  gold 
which  had  been  found  in  the  beds  of  rivers,  or 
in  gulches,  through  which  sti'eams  once  ran, 
must  have  been  washed  down  from  the  places 
of  original  deposits  forther  up  the  mountains. 
The  higher  up  the  gold-hunter  went,  then,  the 
nearer  he  approached  the  source  of  supply. 

To  reach  the  mines  from  San  Francisco,  the 
course  lay  up  San  Pablo  and  Suisun  Bays,  and 
the  Sacramento,  not  then  as  now  a  yellow, 
muddy  stream,  but  a  river  pellucid  'and 
deep,  to  the  landing  for  Sutter's  Fort;  and 
they  who  made  the  voyage  in  sailing  vessels 
thought  Mount  Diablo  significantly  named,  so 
long  it  kept  them  company  and  swung  its  shad- 
ow over  their  path.  From  Sutter's,  the  most 
common  route  was  across  the  broad,  fertile  val- 
ley to  the  foot-hills,  and  up  tlie  American  or 
some  one  of  its  tributaries ;  or,  ascending  the 
Sacramento  to  the  Feather  and  the  Yuba,  the 
company  staked  off  a  claim,  pitched  its  tent  or 
constructed  a  cabin,  and  set  up  its  rocker,  or 


HURRYING   TO    THE   MINES.  243 

began  to  oust  the  river  from  a  portion  of  its  chap. 

bed.     Good  luck  might  hold  the  impatient  ad- ^ 

venturers  for  a  whole  season  on  one  bar ;  bad   i849. 
luck  scattered  them  always  farther  up. 

So  it  was  not  gradually,  but  almost  simul- 
taneously, that  the  settlement  of  the  northern 
mining  region  was  effected.  The  great  trouble 
was  the  excess  of  water  in  the  winter,  and  its 
deficiency  in  the  summer.  But  the  mountains 
where  the  branches  of  the  San  Joaquin  rise 
being  farther  south,  are  covered  with  a  thinner 
mantle  of  snow  than  those  that  feed  the  Sacra- 
mento, and  consequently  those  southern  rivers 
never  rage  with  sucli  tumultuous  floods.  It 
required  but  a  year's  experience  to  discover 
that  the  mines  of  the  south  could  be  best 
worked  during  the  wet  weather,  when  the 
northern  ones  were  impracticable.  So,  though 
the  more  sober  and  persevering  stuck  by  the 
bars  that  paid  them,  and  spent  the  months 
when  they  could  not  get  out  gold,  in  con- 
structing flumes  and  dams  that  would  put  the 
water  henceforth  under  their  control,  the  fluc- 
tuating population  alternated  like  a  tide  be- 
tween the  noi'thern  mines  in  the  summer  and 
the  southern  in  the  winter. 

Koads  sought  the  mining  camps,  which  did 
not  stop  to  study  roads.  Traders  came  in  to 
supply  the  camps,  and,  not  very  fast,  but  still 
to  some  extent,  mechanics  and  farmers  to  sup- 


244  THE    HISTORY    OF   CALIFORNIA. 

^xiy''  P^^^  hoih  traders  and  miners  ;  so,  as  if  by  magic, 

^.^  within  a  year  or  two  after  the  rnsh  began,  the 

^^■*9-    map  of  the  country  was  written  thick  with  the 
names  of  settlements. 

Some  of  these  were  the  nuclei  of  towns  that 
now  flourish  and  promise  to  coutinne  as  long 
as  the  State  is  peopled.  Others,  in  districts 
where  the  placers  were  soon  exhausted,  were 
deserted  almost  as  hastily  as  they  were  begun, 
and  now  no  traces  remain  of  them  except  the 
short  chimney-stack,  the  broken  surface  of  the 
ground,  heaps  of  cobble-stones,  rotting  half- 
buried  sluice-boxes,  empty  whiskey  Ijottles, 
scattered  playing-cards,  and  rusty  cans. 

The  "fall  of  '49  and  spring  of  '50"  is  the 
i&49_  61*^  c>f  California  history,  which  the  j^ioneer  al- 
1850.  ways  speaks  of  with  warmth.  It  was  the  free- 
and-easy  age,  when  everybody  was  flush,  and 
fortune,  if  not  in  the  palm,  was  only  just  beyond 
the  grasp  of  all.  Men  lived  chiefly  in  tents,  or 
in  cabins  scarcely  more  dural>le,  and  behaved 
themselves  like  a  generation  of  bachelors.  The 
family  was  beyond  the  mountains ;  the  restraints 
of  society  had  not  yet  anived.  Men  threw  off 
the  masks  they  had.  lived  behind,  and  appeared 
out  in  their  true  character.  A  few  did  not  dis- 
charge the  consciences  and  convictions  they 
brought  with  them.  More  rollicked  in  a  per- 
fect freedom  from  those  bonds  which  good  men 
cheerfully  assume  in  settled  society  for  the  good 


FLUSH,  RECKLESS   TIMES.  245 

of  the  greater  number.  Some  afterwards  re- 
sumed their  temperate  and  steady  habits ;  but 
hosts  were  wrecked  before  the  period  of  their 
license  expired. 

Very  rarely  did  men  on  their  arrival  in  the 
country  begin  to  work  at  their  old  trade  or  pro- 
fession. To  the  mines  first.  If  fortune  favored, 
they  soon  quit  for  more  congenial  employments. 
If  she  frowned,  they  might  dej^art  disgusted,  if 
they  were  able ;  but  oftener,  from  sheer  in- 
ability to  leave  the  business,  they  kept  on, 
drifting  from  bar  to  bar,  living  fast,  reckless, 
improvident,  half-civilized  lives ;  comparatively 
rich  to-day,  poor  to-morrow ;  tormented  with 
rheumatisms  and  agues ;  remembering  dimly 
the  joys  of  the  old  homestead  ;  nearly  weaned 
from  the  friends  at  home,  who,  because  they 
were  never  heard  from,  soon  became  like  dead 
men  in  their  memorj^ ;  seeing  little  of  women, 
and  nothing  of  churches  ;  self-reliant,  yet  satis- 
fied that  there  was  nowhere  any  "  show "  for 
them ;  full  of  enterprise  in  the  direct  line  of 
their  business,  and  utterly  lost  on  the  thresh- 
old of  any  other ;  genial  companions,  mor- 
bidly craving  after  newspapers;  good  fellows, 
but  short-lived.  In  fifteen  years  almost  the 
whole  generation  of  pioneer  miners  who  re- 
mained in  that  business  has  passed  away,  and 
the  survivors  feel  like  old  men  among  the 
crowds   of  new-comers,  who   may  be  just   as 


246  THE   IIISTOEY    OF    CALIFOENIA. 

CHAP,  old,  but  lack   their  long,  strange   chapter   of 

^_^  adventures. 

1849-  This  heterogeneous  mixture  of  men  was  either 
"*  ■  without  law,  or  were  the  makers  and  executoi^ 
of  their  own  law.  Most  of  the  companies  that 
left  the  East  together  quarrelled  and  dissolved 
partnership,  but  they  had  very  little  litigation 
about  it.  Generally  equity  ruled  in  the  divi- 
sion, for  all  men  claimed  equality,  and  public 
sentiment  was  sharp  for  the  right.  Theft  was 
a  crime  little  known,  but,  when  discovered,  the 
penalty  was  as  swift  as  it  was  terrible.  Lynch- 
law  was  substantially  the  criminal  code  of  the 
mines.  Its  severity  held  crime  in  check,  but 
some  frightful  mistakes  were  made  as  to  the 
ol)jects  of  its  stern  sentences. 

As  to  civil  law,  the  country  was  utterly  at 
sea.  It  had  a  governor  in  the  person  of  the 
commandant  of  the  military  district  it  belonged 
to,  but  no  government.  The  authority  by 
which  the  governor  held  his  power  was  doubt- 
ful and  anomalous.  While  the  war  lasted, 
California,  as  a  conquered  province,  expected  to 
be  governed  by  military  officers,  who,  by  virtue 
of  their  command  of  the  Depai'tment,  bore  sway 
over  all  the  territory  that  their  Department  em- 
braced. But  after  peace  had  come,  and  the  suc- 
cession of  militai'y  governors  Avas  not  abated, 
a  people  who  had  been  in  the  habit  of  govern- 
ing themselves  under  the  same  flag   and  the 


ANOMALOUS    CIYIL    GOVERNBEENT.  247 

same  constitution,  chafed  that  a  simple  change  chap. 

•      •  XIX, 

of  longitude  should  deprive  them  of  their  in^  v_^^ 
alienable  rls-hts.  1849- 

General  Persifer  F.  Smith,  who  assumed  com- 
mand on  arriving  by  the  California^  the  fii*st 
steamship  that  reached  San  Francisco  (February 
28th,  1849),  and  General  Riley,  who  succeeded 
him  (April  13th,  1849),  would  have  been  ac- 
ceptable governors  enough,  if  the  people  could 
liave  discovered  anywhere  in  the  Constitution 
that  the  President  had  po^ver  to  govern  a  terri- 
tory by  a  simple  order  to  the  commandant  of  a 
militaiy  department.  The  power  was  obvious 
in  time  of  war,  but  in  peace  it  was  unprece- 
dented. Left  entirely  to  themselves,  the  people 
could  have  organized  a  squatter  sovereignty,  as 
Oregon  had  done,  and  the  way  into  the  sister- 
hood of  States  was  clear. 

They  felt  that  they  had  cause  for  complaint, 
but  in  truth  they  were  quite  too  busy  to  nurse 
their  grievance  and  make  much  of  it.  To  some 
extent  they  formed  local  governments,  and  had 
unimportant  collisions  with  the  military.  But 
busy  as  they  were,  and  expecting  to  return 
home  soon,  they  humored  their  contempt  for 
politics,  and  left  public  matters  to  be  shaped  at 
Washino'ton.  Nor  was  that  so  unwise  a  course 
under  the  circumstances,  for  the  thing  that  had 
hindered  Congress  from  giving  them  a  legiti- 
mate constitutional  government  was  the  ever* 


248  THE    IIISTOEY    OF    CALIFOllNIA. 

CHAP,  present  snag  in  the  current  of  American  polit- 

^^^ '  ical  history,  the  author  of  most   of  our  woes, 

1849-  the  great  mother  of  mischief  on  the  Western 

1850.  (jontinent — Slavery. 


CALIFORNIAlSr   AFFAIRS    AT   WASHINGTON.  240 


CHAPTER  XX. 

CONGEESS  FAILS  TO  PROVIDE  A  GOVERNMENT. 

President  Polk  liad  asked  the  Twenty-nintli  chap. 
Congress  to  place  at  his  disposal  three  millions  ^^ 
of  dollars  to  be  used  in  negotiating  for  a  boun-  i846, 
dary  which  would  give  to  the  United  States 
additional  territory.  To  a  bill  granting  him  a 
portion  of  that  sum,  David  Wilmot  moved  his 
famous  "  proviso,"  that  no  part  of  the  territory 
to  be  accj^uired  should  be  open  to  the  introduc- 
tion of  slavery.  The  proviso  was  adopted  in 
the  Plouse,  and  that  killed  the  bill  itself  in  the 
Senate.  Giddino;s  said,  "We  souo^ht  to  extend 
and  perpetuate  slavery  in  a  peaceful  manner  by 
the  annexation  of  Texas ;  now  we  are  about 
to  effect  that  object  by  war  and  conquest." 
They  said  Giddings  could  see  slavery  where 
nobody  else  dreamed  of  it,  but  none  ^vere  so 
blind  as  not  to  see  that  the  slavery  question 
was  the  substance  and  spirit  of  the  Avhole  con- 
troversy about  acquiring  California  and  other 
territoiy  from  Mexico. 

At  the  next  session  (1847),  the  three  mil- 
lions were  appropriated.'  Thomas  Corwin  noti- 


250  THE    HISTORY    OF    CALIFORKEA. 

CHAP,  fiecl  the  Senate  tliat  tliey  were  paying  dear  for 
■    California.     If  the  war  terminated  in  any  thins: 

1847.  short  of  a  mere  wanton  waste  of  blood  and 
money,  it  must  end  in  the  acquisition  of  terri- 
tory to  which  the  slavery  controversy  must  at- 
tach. "  Should  we  prosecute  this  war  another 
moment,  or  expend  one  dollar  in  the  purchase 
or  conquest  of  a  single  acre  of  Mexican  land, 
the  North  and  the  South  would  be  brought 
into  collision  on  a  point  where  neither  would 
yield." 

Calhoun  attempted  to  meet  the  case  with  a 
new  dogma.  He  moved  resolutions  declaring 
in  effect  that  Congress  had  no  right  to  prohibit 
slavery  in  a  territory,  and  that  the  exercise  of 
such  a  power  was  a  breach  of  the  Constitution 
leading  to  the  subversion  of  the  Union.  "  Your 
dogma  admitted,"  said  Colonel  Benton,  "the 
Free  Soilers  have  nothing  to  fear,  and  the  Slave 
Soilers  nothins;  to  fear  from  the  admission  of 
California.  By  a  fundamental  law  of  the 
Mexican  Republic  slavery  is  prohibited  through- 
out its  political  jurisdiction.  The  prohibition 
was  proclaimed  by  President  Guerrero  in  1829. 
An  act  of  the  Mexican  Congress  declared 
slavery  abolished  in  1837,  and  in  1844  the 
Constitution  forbade  it  forever.  Then  if  you 
take  California  for  a  part  of  your  territory,  you 
take  her  free,  and  if  Congress,  as  you  say,  has 
no  power  to  legislate  iipon  slavery  in  the  terri- 


CALIFOElSriAN    AFFAIRS    AT    WASHTNGTON".  251 

tones,  the  slavery  question  has  uothing  to  do  chap. 
with  the  question  of  acquiring  land."  -— v— ' 

Calhoun's  resolutions  never  came  to  a  vote.  1847. 
He  and  his  party  soon  chose  a  different  ground, 
and  the  battle  between  the  giants  of  the  Senate 
was  set  with  California  as  the  guerdon.  Cali- 
fornia with  slavery  would  have  been  welcomed 
to  the  Union  by  the  South.  Without  slavery, 
she  was  coveted  by  the  North.  Change  the 
terms,  and  neither  would  consent  to  receive  her. 
Indeed,  there  was  a  small  minority,  mostly 
composed  of  conservative  Whigs,  who  cherished 
the  Grecian  L*tatesman's  advice — "  You  have  a 
Sparta — improve  it," — and  they  protested  that 
to  enlarge  our  boundaries  in  any  direction,  or 
at  any  price,  would  be  a  damage  to  the  com- 
monwealth. 

As  the  prospects  of  making  California  a  Slave 
State  faded,  Calhoun  asked,  "  Is  there  any  man 
here  who  would  give  for  her  fifteen  millions  of 
money  ?"  Benton  thought  better  of  this  land, 
of  which  he  knew  more.  Dix  appreciated  its 
value  to  American  commerce  ;  but  wa^  sure  the 
North  would  spurn  it  if  slavery  were  to  be  in- 
troduced by  American  law  upon  soil  rendered 
forever  free  by  Mexican  laAv.  None  dreamed 
that  the  region  about  which  they  haggled  so 
long  would  be  producing  and  exporting,  within 
a  few  years,  gold  enough  to  pay  the  price,  which 
Calhoun  thouo;ht  so   extravao-aut,   twice   over 


252  THE   HISTORY    OF  '  CALIFORXIA. 

CHAP,  every  twelve  months.     The  negro  question  ef- 
*    fectually  closed  the  2:olclen  jrate  that  year,  and 

1847.  Congress  adjonmed  without  taking  any  steps 
towards  opening  it, 

In  the  spring  of  1848  the  treaty  of  peace  was 

1848.  signed  by  which  California  was  annexed  to  the 
United  States.  How  to  govern  this  new  teni- 
toiy  sorely  exercised  Congress ;  and  the  debate 
on  the  subject  raged  with  violence  until  the 
12th  of  July,  when  Senator  Clayton  moved  a 
committee  of  eight — half  Northerners,  half 
Southerners,  half  Whigs,  half  Democrats — to 
consider  all  the  measures  proposed.  The  reso- 
lution prevailed,  and  the  committee  was  ap- 
pointed— Clayton,  chairman  ;  Calhoun,  Bright, 
Clark  of  Rhode  Island,  Atchison,  Phelps,  D. 
S.  Dickinson,  and  Underwood  of  Kentucky. 
In  committee,  the  South  favored  extending  the 
Missouri  Compromise  line  to  the  Pacific ;  but 
the  North  opposed  it.  The  chairman  wasfinallj^ 
ordered  to  draft  a  compromise  bill  estal)lishing 
the  territorial  governments  of  Oregon,  Califor- 
nia, and  New  Mexico,  and  submitting  all  ques 
tions  as  so  the  rio-htful  existence  or  extension 
of  slavery  in  these  territories  to  the  decision  of 
the  United  States  Supreme  Court.  The  bill  was 
reported,  argued,  urged,  fought,  and  finally  or- 
dered engrossed  by  ayes-  thirty-three,  7ioe-9  twen- 
ty-two— Dix,  Hale,  Hamlin,  and  Corwin  voting 
no.     This  victory  for  the  South  was    accom- 


NO    GOVEENMENT   PROVIDED.  263 

plished  hj  means  of  a  memorable   session  of 
•twenty  hours,   the  majority  achieving  its  pur- 
pose, and  the  Senate  adjourning  at  seven  min-    i848. 
utes   of  eight   o'clock  on   Thursday  morning, 
July  27th. 

But  the  victory  was  barren.  The  House, 
receiving  the  bill,  tabled  it  by  a  vote  of  one 
hundred  and  twelve  to  ninety-seven — three- 
fourths  of  those  voting  to  kill  the  l)ill  by  ta- 
Idino;  it  beino;  Northern  men. 

Mean^^'hile  President  Polk  had,  by  message, 
called  the  attention  of  Congress  to  the  ample 
indemnity  that  California  gave  for  the  past. 
He  had  dwelt  on  the  value  of  the  public 
lands  of  California,  on  the  safety  of  her  har- 
bors, on  the  rich  Eastern  commerce  that  she 
insured,  on  the  new  markets  she  would  fur- 
nish, on  the  increased  tonnage  she  would  re- 
quire, and  the  enhanced  revenue  that  she  must 
return. 

When  Congress  adjourned  without  taking 
a  step  for  the  government  of  the  newly  acquired 
territory,  President  Polk,  through  his  Secretaiy 
of  State,  James  Buchanan,  dispatched  a  letter 
to  the  Pacific  coast  to  assure  the  people  how 
matters  stood.  The  Administration's  doctrine 
was,  that  the  Californians  had  a  government 
de  facto.  To  that  they  were  advised  to  submit. 
Their  consent  to  it  would  be  presumed  so  long 
as  they  submitted,  and  there  need  be  no  ques- 


554  THE    HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  tion  by  what  aiittiority  the  officers  of  the  army 

^  ■     were  governinp:  them. 

1848.  Now,  Colonel  Benton  held  that  the  rio-ht  to 
issue  letters  expository  and  of  advice  was  not 
exclusively  with  Secretaries  of  State  or  Presi- 
sidents ;  so  he,  too,  wrote  a  letter  to  the  Cali- 
fornians,  and  sent  it  by  the  hands  of  Colonel 
Fremont.  He  assured  them  that  by  the  treaty 
they  were  United  States  citizens,  competent  to 
govern  themselves.  He  pronounced  the  edicts 
of  Governors  Mason  and  Kearny,  "  each  an 
ignoramus,^'  null  and  void.  He  warmly  recom- 
mended that  they  call  a  convention  and  provide 
themselves  with  a  governor,  with  judges,  and 
with  peace  and  militia  officers. 

President  Polk's  messag^e  to  Cono-ress,  on  its 
reassembling,  December,  1 848,  recommended  the 
establishment  of  a  mint  at  San  Francisco,  and 
called  attention  again  to  the  necessity  of  erect- 
ing some  form  of  government  for  the  country. 

Senator  Douglas  sprang  to  the  work  so  eager- 
ly, and  persisted  in  it  fo  well,  that  it  was  said 
of  him,  by  way  of  lidicule,  that  he  had  a  special 
mission  to  give  California  a  government.  On 
the  very  first  day  of  the  session  he  gave  notice 
that  he  would  introduce  a  bill  for  the  admission 
of  California  as  a  State.  On  the  seventh  the  bill 
was  forthcoming.  He  despaired,  he  said,  of 
making  it  a  Territory — thi-ee  several  bills  to 
that  effect  having  failed  during  the  preceding 


THE  STRUGGLE   IN   THE   SENATE.  255 

session.     No\v,  lie  proposed  that  all  the  region  chap. 
acquired  by  treaty  from  Mexico  be  admitted  as  _^ 
one  State,  with  two  judicial  districts,  Congress    i848. 
reserving  the  right  to  receive  other  States  out 
of  that  portion  of  it  east  of  the  Sierra  Nevada. 
AfterwardSjhe  proposed  an  amendment,  author- 
izing the  judges  to   lay  off  the  land  into  dis- 
tricts, and  provide  for  the  election  of  delegates 
to  a  constitutional  convention. 

This  bill  was  referred  to  the  Judiciary  Commit- 
tee, which — Mr.  Downs,  of  Louisiana,  alone  dis-  1849. 
senting — reported  adversely  upon  it.  The  report 
argued  that  the  Constitution  provided  only 
for  the  admission,  not  for  the  creation  of  States; 
that  the  proviso  that  Congress  should  reserve 
the  riiz'ht  to  carve  out  from  a  State,  once  admit- 
ted,  other  States,  was  void,  and  the  bill  would 
inevitably  lead  to  litigation  between  Texas  and 
California,  which  the  Supreme  Court  must 
eventually  decide,  with  all  the  delay  incident 
to  such  investigations.  The  committee  recom- 
mended that,  instead  of  one  State,  the  newly 
acquired  region  be  erected  into  two  territories. 
Mr.  Douglas,  foiled  by  the  Judiciary,  man- 
a2:ed  to  ffet  his  bill  referred  to  a  select  commit- 
tee,  composed  of  Senators  Johnson,  Jones, 
Clayton,  Jefferson  Davis,  Badger,  and  Niles, 
with  himself  as  chairman,  which  promptly 
reported  a  bill  erecting  the  territory  into  the 
two  States  of  California  and  New  Mexico. 


256  THE    HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

In  the  course  of  the  discussions  tliat  arose 
upon  these  several  bills,  some  riota])le  things 
1849.  TjYQi'Q  said.  Mr.  Downs  urged  that  California 
should  be  brought  into  the  Union  at  once,  lest, 
delaying,  she  might  never  come  in.  Mr.  But- 
ler pictured  the  surprise  these  Californians 
would  feel,  waking  up  and  finding  themselves 
a  sovereign  State,  without  ashino-  for  it. 

Mr.  Dayton  objected  that  there  was  not  pop- 
ulation enough,  nor  were  the  j^eople  of  the 
right  soi't  to  be  admitted  with  safety.  The  sub- 
stratum of  population  consisted  of  some  twelve 
or  fifteen  thousand  people  of  Spanish  origin, 
retired  officers,  retired  soldiers,  the  remnants  of 
the  old  Franciscan  missions.  Not  as  many 
more  were  on  their  way  thither  by  sea  and  a 
few  overland,  who  did  not  proj^ose  to  stay. 
They  were  heterogeneous,  crazy  about  gold,  in- 
different to  government.  "You  would  have 
to  lasso  your  members  to  get  them  to  a  consti- 
tutional convention.  My  word  for  it,"  said  he, 
in  the  course  of  one  or  two  years  your  ships 
will  return  laden  with  more  gold-diggers  than 
gold-dust." 

Mr.  Webster  said  they  could  do  little  more 
there  than  keep  the  peace  ;  it  was  impracticable 
to  administer  revenue  laws.  A  military  gov- 
ernment there  for  the  present  would  be  the  best 
for  the  people,  and  the  only  safe  course  for  the 
whole  country. 


THE   STRUGGLE   IN   CONGRESS.  257 

But  all  tlie  efforts  of  the  "  Little  Giant "  of  chap. 
Illinois  to  push  his  bill  forward  were  m  vain. 
In  the  House,  a  ten-itorial  bill  for  California  ie49. 
passed,  and  Washington  Hunt  reported,  from 
the  Finance  Committee,  a  bill  to  extend  the 
United  States  revenue  laws  over  Upper  Cali- 
fornia ;  but  that  failed.  Then,  almost  in  de- 
spair, attempts  were  made  to  attach  amendments, 
that  would  secure  a  lawful  collection  of  the 
revenue  at  San  Francisco,  to  the  army  bill,  and 
to  the  civil  and  diplomatic  appropriation  bills. 
At  one  time,  Robert  C.  Schenck,  a  Whig,  from 
Ohio,  proposed  to  cede  back  to  Mexico  all  Cali- 
fornia and  New  Mexico,  if  she  would  allow  us 
twelve  millions  of  dollars  on  account ;  though 
if  she  would  permit  us  to  keep  San  Francisco, 
three  millions  of  dollars  were  at  her  service  as 
remuneration  for  the  gift.  This  astonishing 
proposal,  having  been  amended  somewhat,  ac- 
tually passed  the  committee  of  the  whole  House 
— ayes  eiirhty-five,  7ioes  eighty-one.  When  it 
was  reported  to  the  House,  however,  and  the 
ayes  and  noes  called,  it  was  rejected  by  eleven 
ayes  to  one  hundred  and  ninety-four  noe'S. 

In  the  Senate,  again  General  Dix,  of  New 
York,  regretted  the  necessity  of  discussing  so 
grave  a  question  in  the  form  of  an  amendment 
to  an  appropriation  bill.  He  was  opposed  to 
the  admission  ;  he  held  that  the  inhabitants  of 
California  were  mostly  Indians,  or  Mexicans  of 

17 


258  THE    IIISTOEY    OF    CALIFOEITTA. 

CHAP,  mixed  blood,  uneducated,  not  familiar  with  the 
business  of  self-government,  not   speaking  our 

1849.  language,  not  intelligent  or  cultivated  to  tlie 
standard  of  the  American  citizen.  These  ob- 
jections he  considered  insuperable  to  the  im- 
mediate admission.  He  wanted  to  see  the 
population  that  was  pouring  in  fi*om  every 
quarter  of  the  globe  pass  through  the  process 
of  fermentation  and  settle  before  permitting  it 
to  participate  in  the  administration  of  the  gov- 
ernment. He  held  that  a  territorial  govern- 
ment should  be  organized  for  California  and 
a^ew  Mexico,  the  bill  to  contain  a  prohibition 
of  slaver}^,  which,  he  said,  would  be  agreeable 
to  the  wishes  of  the  people  of  bis  State,  Xew 
York.  He  grieved  over  the  news  that  lie  heard 
from  the  country.  Said  he,  "  In  the  recent  dis- 
covery of  gold,  there  is  much  to  be  deplored  ; 
let  us  hope  that  it  will  soon  become  exhausted, 
and  that  the  steady  pursuits  of  agricultui'al, 
commercial,  and  mechanical  industry,  by  which 
alone  nations  are  made  prosperous,  may  consti- 
tute the  sole  ol^jects  of  application." 

For  several  days  senators  battled  over  the 
constitutional  questions  involved.  Webster  and 
Calhoun  wrestled  on  this  point — whether  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  extends  over 
all  its  territories,  as  the  latter  argued,  or  can- 
not, by  legislation,  be  extended  an  inch  beyond 
the  States'  borders,  as  the  former  insisted.  The 


A   STORMY   SUNDAY    SESSIOIS".  259 

civil  and  diplomatic  appropriation  bill,  whicli  chap. 
had  passed  tlie  House,  halted  on  its  passage  for 
these  logicians  to  decide  abstract  propositions  i849. 
which  had  no  natural  connection  with  any  item 
in  the  bill,  but  were  incident  to  tlie  territorial 
questions  that  had  been  grafted  on  it  by  the 
Senate,  rather  than  have  them  utterly  ignored. 

The  4th  of  March  came  that  year  (1849)  on  Mar.4. 
Sunday.  President  Taylor  was  to  be  inaugu- 
rated on  the  5th,  and  Cons-ress  had  no  leGral 
existence  after  the  session  of  Saturday,  the  3d, 
should  end.  Unless  this  appropriation  bill 
passed,  the  wheels  of  government  would  stop ; 
yet  midnight  came  and  the  two  houses  still  dis- 
ao-reed  as  to  these  foreio-n  amendments.  Mr. 
Cass  said  the  term  of  the  session  was  ended ; 
he  could  not  vote  on  any  motion.  Mr.  Web- 
ster insisted  that  the  legislative  day  terminated 
only  with  the  adjournment  of  the  day's  session, 
without  reo-ard  to  clocks. 

Mr.  Foote  raged  and  raved.  He  denied  the 
right  of  the  body  to  take  any  further  action. 
About  four  o'clock  Sunday  morning  he  pro- 
tested that  nothing  was  in  order ;  that  the  chair 
could  not  put  a  question,  because  the  body  did 
not  exist.  When  he  made  a  motion,  he  said  it 
was  not  made  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States, 
but  in  a  town  meeting,  four  hours  after  the  term 
of  several  senators  had  expired.  Occasionally 
he   was  sharply  rebuked  by  some  earnest  man 


260  THE   HISTORY   OF   CALIFOENIA. 

CHAP,  wlio   could   keep    silence   no    longer.      Some- 
^_^  times  his  brother  senators  liissed  and  groaned 
1849.    at  him.     Oftener  they  bit  tlieir  lips  and  mut- 
tered their  disgust ;    but   checked  themselves 
even  in  that,  lest  it  should  provoke  new  delays 
and  fresh  obstacles.     In  the  course  of  the  nio-ht 

o 

Mr.  Cameron  and  Mr.  Berrian  were  nearly  be- 
trayed into  a  personal  collision. 

Jefferson  Davis  said,  strike  out  of  the  bill  all 
concerning  California,  and  save  the  appropria- 
tions. Mr.  Douglas  preferred  to  lose  the  appro- 
priation bill  and  save  California.  Finally,  the 
Senate  receded  from  its  amendments  (which  the 
House  would  only  agi'ee  to  on  condition  that 
other  amendments  were  added),  and  the  appro- 
priation bill  passed  with  but  seven  dissenting 
votes — Mr.  Dou2:las  votini*;  Avith  the  noes.  In- 
stantly  a  House  bill,  which  Mr.  Dix  had  in  the 
morning  reported,  was  called  up  and  passed, 
and  the  two  houses,  after  a  terribly  stormy  all- 
night  session,  adjourned  at  seven  o'clock  Sunday 
morning,  March  4th. 

This  Sunday-morning  bill  extended  the  reve- 
nue laws  of  the  United  States  over  all  the  terri- 
tory ceded  by  the  treaty  of  peace  with  Mexico. 
It  made  San  Francisco  a  port  of  entry,  and  San 
Diego,  Monterey,  and  a  point  near  the  junction 
of  the  rivers  Gila  and  Colorado  ports  of  de- 
livery. It  authorized  the  President  to  appoint 
a  collector  of  customs,  and  that  collector  to  ap- 


THE  KnVENUE  LAWS  EXTENDED.        261 

point  three  deputies.  It  provided  amply  for  chap. 
obtaining  revenue  from  California,  but  did  not  _^_, 
even  promise  at  some  future  day  the  govern-  i849. 
ment  that  she  coveted. 

It  imposed  no  new  burdens  on  the  people, 
but  it  lecralized  the  course  that  Governor  Mason 

o 

was  already  pursuing ;  for,  on  hearing  of  the 
treaty  of  peace,  the  governor  had  taken  the  re- 
sponsibility of  collecting  the  revenues  under  the 
tariff  of  1846.  His  collections  had  been  with- 
out law,  yet  as  there  were  laws  forbidding 
goods  to  be  landed  until  the  duties  were  paid, 
and  as  the  goods  were  demanded,  he  assumed 
that  it  was  his  plain  duty  to  encourage  the 
landing  of  the  goods,  and  raise  a  revenue  from 
them. 


202  THE   HISTOIIY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 


\ 
\ 
\ 


CHAPTER  XXL 

TEE  CONSTITUTIONAL   CONVENTION. 


CHAP.       The  Californians  were  not  surprised  at  tlie 

XXI 

w,^_^  failure  of  Congress  to  give  them  a  government. 

1849.  In  anticipation  of  such  an  issue,  they  had  called 
public  meetings  at  San  Jose,  San  Francisco, 
Sonoma,  and  Monterey,  and  discussed  their 
position.  They  had  gone  so  far  as  to  set  the 
day  for  the  election  of  delegates  to  a  constitu- 
tional convention,  but  they  had  neglected  such 
a  concert  of  action  as  insures  success. 

When,  however,  Brigadier-General  Bennett 
Riley  (who  succeeded  General  Persifer  S.  Smith, 
the  successor  of  Mason  as  governor)  learned 
positively  that  Congress  had  adjourned  and 
done  nothing,  he  issued  a  proclamation  by  the 
advice,  he  said,  of  the  President  and  Secretaries 
of  State  and  of  War,  which  was  at  once  a  call 
for  a  convention,  and  an  official  exposition  of 
the  Administration's  theory  of  the  anomalous 
relations  of  California  and  the  Union.  He 
strove  to  correct  the  prevailing  impression  that 
California  was   held  under  a  military  govern- 


THE   CONSTITUTIOlSrAL   CONVENTIOTS^.  263 

ment.     That  was  ended  with  the  war.     What  chap. 

•  vxr 

remained  was  the  civil  government  recognized  ^^^.^ 

by  the  existing  laws  of  California.  Those  laws  ib49. 
vested  the  government  of  the  country  in  a  gov- 
ernor appointed  by  the  supreme  government, 
or,  in  default  of  such  appointment,  the  office  was 
vested  in  the  commanding  militaiy  officer  of 
the  department,  a  secretary,  a  departmental  or 
teiTitorial  legislature,  a  superior  court  with 
four  judges,  a  prefect  and  sub-prefect  and  a 
judge  of  the  first  instance  for  each  district, 
alcaldes,  local  justices  of  the  peace,  and  ayun- 
tamientos  or  town  councils.  Several  of  these 
offices  were  vacant ;  he  advised  that  they  be 
filled  by  the  people,  and  named  the  first  of  Au- 
gust as  the  day  for  the  election. 

Moreover,  he  advised  the  election  of  delegates 
to  a  convention  to  adopt  either  a  State  or  ter- 
ritorial constitution,  which,  if  the  people  rati- 
fied, might  be  submitted  to  Congress  for  its  ap- 
proval. The  territory,  for  election  purposes,  he 
divided  into  ten  districts.  Every  male  inhabi- 
tant of  the  country,  who  was  twenty-one  years 
of  age,  was  at  liberty  to  vote  in  the  district  of 
his  residence,  and  the  delegates  so  elected  were 
ordered  to  convenw  at  Monterey  on  the  first  of 
September.  The  whole  number  of  delegates 
was  fixed  at  thirty-seven,  of  which  San  Francis- 
co was  to  send  five.  In  the  rapidly-shifting 
state  of  society,  and  because  no  one  could  pre- 


264  THE    HISTORY   OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  tend  to  say  how  tbe  population  of  the  State 

was  distributed,  supernumeraiy  delegates  could 

1849.    be  elected  where  it  was  deemed  desirable,  and 

the   convention  would    exercise   its  discretion 

about  admitting  them. 

There  was  a  little  natural  repugnance  on  the 
part  of  the  people  to  accepting  the  dictation  of 
their  governor  by  militaiy  position ;  but  as 
they  had  once  postponed  the  time  that  had 
been  set  for  the  election,  and  as  the  proclama- 
tion really  commanded  about  what  they  de- 
sired, they  consented,  after  relieving  their  minds 
by  a  public  meeting  or  two,  to  obey  it. 

The  election  came  off  on  the  appointed  day, 
and  a  vote  so  alarmingly  small  was  polled,  that 
those  interested  hesitated  whether  to  confess 
that  they  had  greatly  overrated  the  population, 
or  that  the  masses  cared  very  little  about  poli- 
tics. Still,  the  prophecy  of  Senator  Dayton 
was  not  fulfilled,  that  they  would  have  to  lasso 
the  members  to  get  them  to  a  constitutional 
convention. 

The  convention  met  as  ordered,  at  Monterey, 
on  the  1st  of  September,  1849,  assembling  in 
Colton  Hall,  a  large  two-story  stone  building, 
named  in  honor  of  Walter  Colton,  author  of 
Ship  and  Shore^  who,  while  alcalde  of  the 
place,  had  urged  its  erection  with  the  proceeds 
of  the  sale  of  city  lots.  On  Monday,  the  3d, 
a  quorum  was  found  present,  and  the  first  ses- 


MEMBEKS  OF   THE  CONVENTIOI^.        265 

sion   was    opened   with  prayer   by   the   Rev. 
S.  H.  Willey,  a  Presbyterian  clergyman,  who 
had  been  sent  out  by  the  Ameiican  Home  Mis-    i849. 
sionary  Society  in  1848,  before  the  gold  discov-     ^^  ' 
ery  Avas  bruited.     They  got  early  to  work,  and 
had  a  lively  session  of  six  weeks. 

On  the  roll  of  members  were  the  names  of 
several  who  had  been  already  identified  with 
the  histoiy^  of  the  country,  and  who  have  since 
taken  a  large  share  in  its  fate.  Among  them 
were  Captain  H.  W.  Halleck,  then  Riley's 
secretary  of  state,  and  since  then  known  to  all 
the  nation  as  General-in-Chief  of  the  United 
States  Army  ;  John  A.  Sutter,  the  pioneer,  v/ho 
kept  open  house  in  the  Sacramento  Valley  when 
the  valley,  now  so  busy,  was  a  solitude ;  John 
McDougal,  the  second  governor  of  the  State ;" 
Thomas  O.  Larkin,  the  first  and  last  American 
consul  in  California,  and  before  1848  the  con- 
fidential agent  of  the  American  State  Depart- 
ment ;  Charles  T.  Botts,  afterwards  editor  of  a 
Democratic  paper  published  at  Sacramento; 
Mariano  de  Guadalupe  Vallejo,  who  had  figured 
in  the  civil  wars  of  the  province,  and  had 
greeted  with  welcome  the  Americans  at  the  be- 
ginning of  their  career  in  the  land ;  and  Dr. 
Gwin,  one  of  the  first  United  States  senators 
elected  by  the  legislature  of  the  organized 
State. 

Enough  of  the  supernumerary  delegates  were 


266  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  admitted  to  make  the  Convention  number  forty- 

XXL 

^__  _   seven  members.     They  represented   seventeen 
1840.    States  of  the  Union,  and  five  foreio-n  countries. 
^^^'    Seven  of  them  were  native  Californians  ;   ten 
had  not  been  more  than  one  year  in  the  terri- 
tory ;  and  ten  more  had  not  been  residents  over 
two  years.     Dr.  Gwin,  who  took  a  very  impor- 
tant part  in  the  proceedings,  had  been  there  but 
four  months.     Eight  were   merchants ;  eleven 
farmers ;  thirteen  lawyers  ;  one  gave  his  profes- 
sion as  "  elegant  leisure."     Several  of  them  did 
not  understand  the  English  language ;  they  ad- 
dressed the  house  through  an  interpreter,  and 
important  resolutions  were  interpreted  to  them. 
/^When  the  Convention  was  permanently  or- 
/ganized,  Ro])ert   Semple,   of  Sonoma,  was   its 
*  president ;   W.  E.  P.  Hart  well  its  interj^i-eter ; 
'^i^illiam   Gr.  Marcy  its  secretary ;  Caleb  Lyon 
and  J.  G.  Field  its  assistant  secretaries ;  and  J. 
Ross  Brown  its  official  reporter. 

There  was  not  at  first  entire  unanimity  as  to 
the  policy  of  forming  a  State  government, 
though  the  idea  that  the  native  Californians 
were  generally  opposed  to  it  was  denied  on  the 
floor.  Dr.  Gvv'iu  had  taken  the  precaution  to 
have  some  copies  of  the  constitution  of  Iowa 
printed,  and  because  that  was  the  only  docu- 
ment of  the  sort  to  which  they  had  easy  access 
at  first,  it  seemed  for  a  while  as  if  Iowa  were  to 
furnish  California  with  her  organic  law.     But 


AWKWAKD    LACK    OF   BOOKS.  267 

as  the  session  advanced,  the  constitution  of  New  chap, 
York  was  oftener  consulted,  and  when  the  con- 
vention finished  its  Labors  their  perfected  in- 
strument resembled  more  that  of  the  Empire 
State  than  of  any  other.  When  the  preamble 
was  under  discussion,  McDougal  expressed  his 
fervent  deske  to  see  a  few  lines  of  the  dele- 
gates' own  manufacture.  Mr.  McCarver  said  if 
they  sat  there  much  longer  they  would  have  a 
resolution  in  to  annex  New  York,  constitution 
and  all.  Botts  complained  that  the  standing 
committee  of  twenty  (of  which  Gwin  and 
Myron  Norton  were  leading  members)  had 
gathered  up  a  constitution  out  of  all  sorts  of 
constitutions,  without  any  regard  to  the  circum- 
stances of  California. 

Delegates  complained  that  they  felt  the  awk- 
wardness of  havino'  so  few  books  of  reference. 
Mr.  Botts  believed  there  were  not  fifty  law-books 
in  Monterey.  Yet  the  debates  exhibit  a  remark- 
able degree  of  ability.  The  speeches,  as  re- 
ported, were  generally  brief,  j)ertinent,  and  ex- 
haustive of  the  topics  discussed.  Their  free- 
dom from  verbiage,  repetition,  and  irrelevant 
matter  would  be  surprising,  if  we  did  not  sus- 
pect that  the  rej^utation  of  the  speech-makers 
was  mercifully  spared,  and  their  credit  en- 
hanced by  the  elegant  and  critical  pen  of  the 
I'eporter. 

The  first  article  of  the  constitution  is  entitled 


268  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

a  "  Declaration  of  Rights."  Wheu  this  article 
was  reported  from  the  committee,  it  provided 
1841).  in  general  terms  that  no  member  of  the  State 
should  be  disfranchised  unless  by  the  law  of 
the  land  or  the  judgment  of  his  peers.  This 
was  not  u])  to  the  standard  of  public  sentiment. 
It  was  hnally  amended  to  declare  that  "  all  men 
are,  by  nature,  free  and  independent,  and  have 
certain  inalienable  rights,  among  which  are 
those  of  enjoying  and  defending  life  and  lib- 
erty." Lest  that  should  be  at  some  future  day 
construed  into  a  "glittering  generality,"  Mi*. 
Shannon,  an  Irishman  by  birth,  who  had  emi- 
grated three  years  before  from  New  York, 
moved,  as  an  additional  section  to  the  article, 
the  following :  "  Neither  slavery  nor  involun- 
tary servitude,  unless  for  the  punishment  of 
crime,  shall  ever  be  tolerated  in  this  State." 

Considering  how  the  territory  of  California 
was  acquired  l>y  the  United  States;  consider- 
ing the  composition  of  the  Convention,  and  the 
antecedents  of  some  of  its  prominent  members, 
this  ought  to  have  raised  a  great  storm.  But 
it  did  not ;  the  text  which  never  failed  before 
to  produce  a  debate,  failed  utterly  here.  There 
was  a  little  talk  about  what  part  of  the  con- 
stitution to  put  that  provision  in,  and  then  the 
section  was  adopted  in  committee  of  the  whole 
unanimously.  This  was  done  on  the  tenth  day 
after  the  Convention  assembled,  which  shows 


SLAVERY    PROHIBITED    FOREVER.  269 

that  the  action  was  susr^ested  by  the  well-un-  chap. 
derstood  sentiment  of  the  people,  and  not  bred 
of  the  policy  developed  within  the  Convention    i849. 
itself. 

After  so  handsome  an  achievement  in  the 
interest  of  freedom,  accomplished  with  scarce  a 
struggle,  it  was  quite  natural  that  the  Conven- 
tion, in  the  good  nature  that  follows  victory, 
should  be  almost  betrayed  into  an  action  that 
would  have  reflected  veiy  seriously  upon  its 
sagacity.  A  desperate  effort  was  made  to  pro- 
hibit the  emio;ration  of  free  nes^roes  into  the 
State.  This  was  strenuously  advocated  by  Mr. 
McCarver,  a  Kentuckian ;  Mr.  Semple,  also  fi'om 
Kentucky  by  the  way  of  Missouri ;  Di'.  Wozen- 
craft,  from  Ohio,  via  Louisiana;  Mr.  Tefft,  from 
New  York,  and  Mr.  Steuart,  from  Maryland. 
They  argued  that  free  negroes  were  bad  mem- 
bers of  society,  and  unless  they  were  strictly 
prohibited  from  entering  the  State,  California 
would  be  overrun  with  them,  and  their  labor 
be  brought  into  competition  with  white  labor 
in  the  mines.  They  said  the  owners  of  slaves 
had  already  discovered  that,  by  bringing  their 
negroes  here  and  freeing  them  under  indentures, 
binding  them  to  dig  gold  for  a  while,  they  could 
get  as  much  profit  out  of  them  in  three  years 
as  during  a  life-time  on  the  plantations,  besides 
saving  the  expense  of  taking  care  of  them  when 
old  and  valueless  as  property. 


270  THE    HISTORY    OF    CALIFOENIA. 

CHAP.       Mr.    Dimmick,  of  New  York,  I'eplied,  that 
XXI      »  t  .  . 

_^__  few  masters  could  afford  to  bring  their  slaves 

1849.  here,  especially  in  view  of  the  extreme  proba- 
bility that  they  would  run  away  the  day  they 
set  foot  on  California  free  soil. 

Mr.  Shannon,  of  New  York,  said  the  Slave 
States  might  very  properly  prohibit  fi'ee  negroes 
from  crossing  theii'  borders,  for  their  presence 
was  injurious  to  the  slave  system  ;  but  the  Free 
States  had  no  excuse  for  such  illiberality,  and 
only  one  of  them,  Illinois,  had  practised  it. 
There,  the  Convention  refused  to  put  the  prohibi- 
tory clause  into  the  constitution ;  but  leaving  it 
to  the  people,  they,  by  a  popular  vote,  insert- 
ed it.  He  contended,  moreover,  that  the  free 
blacks  are  not  a  bad  people,  and  if  this  illiberal 
provision  should  be  inserted,  it  would  damage 
the  prospects  of  the  constitution  in  Congress. 

Mr.  Gill:)ert,  from  New  York,  though  con- 
fessing to  a  fashionable  degree  of  repugnance  to 
the  blacks,  opposed  the  prohibition.  He  held 
that  color  was  not  a  crime.  The  free  negro,  in 
the  spii'it  and  meaning  of  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States,  was  a  citizen,  and  that  Con- 
stitution j)rovides  that  the  citizens  of  each  State 
shall  be  entitled  to  all  the  privileges  and  im- 
munities of  the  several  States.  To  insert  the 
proposed  section  would  jeopardize  the  success 
of  all  their  labors. 

This  debate  occurred    in  committee  of  the 


OlSr   NEGEO   nuriGRATION.  271 

whole,  nine  days  after  tlie  unanimous  adoption  chap. 
of  tlie  section  excluding  slavery  forever  from  J^_ 
the  State.     When  the  vote  was  taken  the  pro-    1849. 
posed   section   was   adopted.      It   was   as   fol- 
lows: "The  Legislature  shall,  at  its  first  session, 
pass  such  laws  as  will  effectually  prohibit  free 
persons  of  color  from  immigrating  to,  and  set- 
tling in  this  State,  and  to  effectually  prevent  the 
owners  of  slaves  from  brino-ino;  them  into  this 
State  for  the  purpose  of  setting  them  free." 

But  that  dark  stio-ma  was  not  to  be  indelible. 
A  fortnight  afterward  the  subject  came  up 
again,  the  question  being  on  the  adoption  of 
the  report  of  the  committee  of  the  whole.  Mr. 
Norton  opposed  the  prohibitory  clause  on  con- 
stitutional grounds.  He  alleged  that  when 
Missouri  was  admitted  to  the  Union  it  was 
with  the  express  condition  imposed  by  Con- 
gress, that  she  should  strike  out  a  similar  clause 
from  her  constitution.  The  subject  was  dis- 
cussed again  freely,  and  when  the  question  was 
taken  the  whole  section  was  rejected,  by  ayes  8, 
noes  31. 

But  the  negro  question  was  not  quite  yet 
disposed  of.  It  reappeared  as  the  principal 
feature  of  the  long  discussion  concerning  the 
boundaries  of  the  State.  That  California  should 
l)e  declared  to  be  bounded  on  the  west  by  the 
ocean,  on  the  north  by  Oregon,  and  on  the 
south  by  Mexico,  was  acceded  to  so  soon  as 


272  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  proposed.  But  where  should  the  eastern  line 
be   drawn?     The   committee  had  reported   in 

1849.  favor  of  placing  it  on  the  one  hundred  and  six- 
teenth parallel  of  longitude.  This  would  have 
included  within  California  the  whole  of  mod- 
ern Nevada.  Mr.  McDougal  proposed  the  one 
hundred  and  fifth  parallel  of  longitude,  which 
would  have  taken  in  portions  of  Kansas  and 
Nebraska.  Mr.  Semple  preferred  to  make  the 
Sierra  Nevada  the  eastern  boundary.  Dr. 
Gwin  wanted  to  follow  the  line  of  separation 
between  California  and  New  Mexico,  as  laid 
down  on  Fremont's  map,  which  would  include 
the  Mormon  settlements  about  Salt  Lake. 
Captain  Halleck  favored  that,  with  a  j^roviso 
authorizing  the  legislature  to  assent  to  a  pro- 
position, if  Congress  should  make  one,  for  the 
erection  of  all  east  of  the  Sierras  into  either  a 
Territory  or  a  separate  State.  Mr.  Shannon 
proposed  nearly  the  boundaries  that  were 
finally  adopted.  He  objected  to  all  schemes  or 
proposals  that  left  the  territorial  question  open, 
for  that  left  the  slavery  question  open.  The 
usual  arguments  for  and  against  a  large  State 
were  urged  and  answered.  The  dignity  of 
imperial  dimensions,  the  pride  of  size,  the  fact 
that  there  was  no  neighbor  on  the  east  to  ob- 
ject to  the  Avidest  scope  proposed,  the  human- 
ity of  extending  State  law  over  the  deserts 
which  were  beginning  to   be  populous  along 


July. 


THE   SLAVERY    QUESTION.  273 

certain  lines  of  approacli  and  which  Congress  cfiap. 
had  failed  to  shield  with  any  law,  the  doctrine 
that  the  California  of  Mexico  included  all  and  i849. 
more  than  the  committee  recommended,  and 
that  it  was  not  becoming  for  the  convention, 
unasked,  to  dismember  or  reject  any  portion 
of  her — these  were  the  considerations  urged 
at  first  for  making  the  State  embrace  all 
the  area  possible.  On  the  other  hand,  it  was 
argued  that  it  was  wasting  political  power  to 
give  to  so  vast  a  territory  no  more  United 
States  senators  than  little  Delaware  is  entitled 
to ;  the  desert  east  of  the  Sierras  was  worth  no 
State's  possessing ;  the  expense  of  sustaining  a 
State  government  over  so  broad  a  field  would 
be  burdensome ;  to  take  in  Utah  would  be 
simply  to  stipulate  for  a  Mormon  trouble ;  to 
be  modest  w^ould  look  well  in  Congress,  and 
cost  the  sacrifice  of  not  an  acre  that  was  really 
worth  owning.  Of  course  no  one  dreamed  then 
that  within  twenty  years  the  desert  east  of  the 
Sierras  would  be  ringing  with  the  clatter  of 
mills,  populous  with  permanent  inhabitants, 
and  famous  the  world  over  for  the  products  of 
its  mines. 

But  the  specious  arguments  that  men  ad- 
vance are  seldom  the  ones  that  govern  their 
votes  in  deliberative  bodies.  The  boundary 
question  was  settled  by  considerations  connect- 
ed with  slavery.  One  party  said,  we  have  pro- 
is 


274        THE  HISTORY  OF  CALIFOHNIA. 

CHAP,  liiblted  slavery  from  our  State;  now,  for  hu- 
_  raanity's  sake,  let  us  make  the  State  as  large  as 

1849.  possible.  Do  you  suppose,  asked  the  Chivalry, 
that  the  South  is  so  blind  as  not  to  see  that  ? 
and  will  they  let  you  in  at  all,  when  for  such  a 
purpose  you  ask  so  much  ?  Ask  modestly, 
said  a  third  party,  and  ask  for  a  fixed,  unalter- 
able line,  and  Congress  will  not  be  tempted  to 
debate  your  admission  all  next  term.  Mr.  Sem- 
,  pie  quoted  T.  Butler  King,  as  begging  very 
emphatically,  "  Leave  us  no  territory  to  legis- 
late upon  in  Congress."  Mr.  Shannon  under- 
stood it  now — the  Cabinet  was  divided  about 
the  Wilmot  Proviso,  and  the  President  had  sent 
out  T.  Butler  Kinsr  to  induce  the  convention  to 
put  all  the  loose  territory  west  of  the  Pocky 
Mountains  within  California,  and  take  that  bone 
of  contention,  the  "Wilmot  Proviso,"  out  of 
Congress. 

Whether  that  was  literally  true  or  not,  there 
is  no  doubt  that  the  most  comprehensive  bound- 
aries were  advocated,  with  tlie  hope  that  the 
action  of  the;  convention  would  be  taken  as 
final,  and  relieve  the  Administration  of  a  troul)- 
lesome  question  that  it  did  not  care  to  en- 
counter. In  committee  of  the  whole  this  j)olicy 
prevailed,  and  the  Gwin-IIalleck  proposition 
was  adopted  by  ayes  19,  noes  4. 

That  did  not  end  the  discussion,  however, 
which   was   resumed  in  the  House  and  main- 


THE   BOUISTDARY    QUESTION.  276 

tained  witli  energy,  amendment  after  amend-  chap. 
ment  being  voted  down.  When,  at  last,  three  v^,,_, 
days  before  the  Convention  adjourned,  the  re-  1849. 
port  of  the  committee  of  the  whole  was  con- 
curred in  by  aye^  29  to  noes  22,  there  was 
great  confusion  and  excitement.  Mr.  McCarver 
moved  to  adjourn  sine  die — they  had  done  mis- 
chief enough.  "  Your  constitution  is  gone — is 
gone  ! "  exclaimed  Mr.  Snyder.  "  I  will  sign  it 
under  protest."  "  All  is  lost,"  and  cries  of 
"Order,"  rang  through  the  halL  Afterwards 
the  matter  was  reconsidered,  and,  as  a  compro- 
mise, the  line  accepted  which  forms  the  present 
eastern  boundary — a  line  drawn  north  and 
south  from  the  forty-second  to  the  thirty-ninth 
parallel  on  the  one  hundred  and  twentieth  de- 
gree of  longitude,  thence  southeasterly  to  ihQ 
Colorado ;  thence  along  the  channel  of  that 
river  to  the  Mexican  line.  This  left  the  Mor- 
mons out,  took  in  all  that  was  supposed  to  be 
of  any  earthly  value  of  the  territory  that  Mex- 
ico ever  treated  as  California,  and  gave  to  the 
new  State  an  area  of  one  hundred  and  eighty- 
eight  thousand  nine  hundred  and  eighty-one 
square  miles. 

Other  topics  gently  exercised  the  Convention, 
but  no  other  one  excited  it.  The  freedom  of 
the  press  was  guarded  by  a  provision  that  in 
criminal  prosecutions  for  libel,  the  truth  of  the 
alleged  libel  might  be  pleaded,  and  if  good  mo- 


276  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  tives  for  the  publication  appeared,  the  accused 
should  be  acquitted.  The  right  of  suffrage  was 
1849.  extended  to  white  male  citizens  of  the  United 
States,  and  to  white  male  citizens  of  Mexico, 
who  elected  to  become  citizens  of  the  United 
States  under  the  treaty  of  peace.  The  Legisla- 
ture was  prohibited  from  granting  divorces. 

Lotteries  were  prohibited.  j\Ir.  Price  believed 
lotteries  a  necessary  evil ;  they  could  be  made 
to  defray  the  expenses  of  the  Legislature  until  a 
system  of  taxes  were  devised.  He  contended 
that  the  people  of  California  were  essentially  a 
gambling  people.  Every  public  house  had  its 
monte  and  faro  tables  licensed  by  law,  where 
there  was  a  law.  Lotteries  were  less  offensive 
to  public  morals ;  he  would  tax  them  for  the 
sake  of  revenue.  Mr.  Halleck  reminded  gentle- 
men of  the  famous  case  of  Yates  and  Mclntyre, 
which  involved  not  only  many  individuals  in 
ruin,  but  so  embarrassed  the  finances  of  New 
York  State  that  the  convention  of  1846  felt 
called  on  to  prohil)it  lotteries.  Mr.  Dimmick 
denied  the  truth  of  IMr.  Pjice's  charge,  that 
California  was  a  community  of  gamblers.  It 
was  not  applicable  to  his  constituency,  the 
people  of  San  Jose.  The  prohibition  Avas  not 
seriously  contested  further. 

Fighting  a  duel,  or  sending  or  accepting  a 
challeno-e,  or  actino^  as  a  second  in  a  duel,  after 
the   adoption   of  the   Constitution,  made   the 


MORAL    AND    EDUCAllOIirAL   PEOVISIONS.  377 

party  so  offending  ineligible  to  any  office  of  chap. 
profit,  and  disfranchised  him.     Dr.  Gwin  earn-  .__^_, 
estly   contended  for  this  clause.     He  pleaded    i849. 
bis  observation  in   Mississippi   and  Tennessee 
in  evidence  that  this  remnant  of  the  dark  a2:es, 
which  the  greatest  cowards  cling  to,  can  be  put 
down  by  law. 

Provision  was  ordered  for  a  system  of  com- 
mon schools,  to  be  supported  in  every  district 
for  three  months  in  the  year ;  but  they  were  not 
required  to  be  absolutely  fi'ee.  The  rights  of 
women  to  a  separate  property  were  recognized. 
Banks  of  circulation  were  forbidden,  and,  after 
a  long  discussion,  hard  money  was  made  the  ex- 
clusive currency.  Mr.  Botts  struggled  hard  to 
make  the  State  treasury  a  bank  of  deposit  of 
gold  and  silver,  with  power  to  issue  certificates 
of  deposit.  "  You  want  a  mint,"  said  he,  "  but 
3'ou  cannot  have  one — not  in  three  years ;  nor 
at  all — the  expense  of  labor  required  to  conduct 
it  would  be  too  great  in  this  country ;"  in  which 
prediction,  happily,  he  made  a  mistake. 

They  fixed  the  capital  at  San  Jose ;  but  they 
left  it  optional  for  the  Legislature,  by  a  two- 
thirds  vote  of  each  house,  to  remove  it  at  any 
time. 

The  expenses  of  the  Convention,  General  Riley 
gave  them  to  understand,  that  he  would  take 
care  of,  out  of  the  proceeds  of  the  anomalously 
collected  revenues.     They  allowed  to  their  sec- 


278  THE   nifTORY    OF    CALIFOKiaA. 

CPLAP.  retaiy  twenty-eigbt  dollars  per  diem. ;  to  the 
1849.  assistant  secretaries  and  engrossing  clerk  they 
— - — '  paid  twenty-three  dollars  each,  daily ;  to  the 
copying  clerk,  sixteen  dollars ;  to  the  door- 
keeper, twelve  dollars.  The  sessions  were 
opened  with  prayer,  either  by  the  Rev.  Mr. 
Willey,  Presbyterian,  or  the  Kev.  Father  Ra- 
mirez, Catholic ;  for  this,  sixteen  dollars  a  day 
was  paid.  The  reporter,  J.  Ross  Browne,  en- 
gaged to  deliver  a  certain  number  of  printed 
copies  of  the  proceedings ;  he  was  paid  ten 
thousand  dollars.  These  seem  like  liberal  sala- 
aries — heavy  ones,  they  all  confessed  when  they 
lugged  them  off  at  the  close  of  the  session,  paid 
mostly  in  silver  coin ;  but  they  were  not  out  of 
proportion  to  the  wages  that  men  were  making 
in  the  field,  the  shop,  and  the  counting-room. 

Only  one  design  for  a  great  seal  of  state 
and  coat  of  arms  was  offered  to  the  committee 
that  took  that  matter  in  charge.  It  was  pre- 
sented by  Caleb  Lyon,  of  Lyonsdale,  as  v/ith 
harmless  affectation  the  eccentric  first  assistant 
secretary  loved  to  designate  himself.  After  it 
was  accepted,  some  members  claimed  the  original 
design  of  it  for  Major  Garnett,  who,  however, 
had  expressed  to  Mr.  Lyon  a  desire  that  he 
alone  should  be  known  as  its  authoi'.  Mr. 
Lyon  was  authorized  to  have  it  engraved,  and 
to  furnish  a  press  and  necessary  appendages, 
and  the  Convention  paid  him  one  thousand  dol- 


THi:   SEAL   OF   STATE.  2T9' 

lars  for  it.     The  seal  is  thus  explained  by  its  chap. 
designer : —  w-v— ' 

"  Around  the  bend  of  the  ring  are  represented  i849. 
thirty-one  stars,  being  the  number  of  the  States 
of  which  the  Union  will  consist  upon  the  ad- 
mission of  California.  The  foreground  figure 
represents  the  goddess  Minerva,  having  sprung 
full  grown  from  the  brain  of  Jupiter.  She  is 
introduced  as  a  type  of  the  political  birth  of 
the  State  of  California,  without  having  gone 
through  the  probation  of  a  Territory.  At  her 
feet  crouches  a  grizzly  bear,  feeding  upon  the 
clusters  from  a  grape-vine,  emblematic  of  the 
peculiar  characteristics  of  the  country.  A 
miner  is  engaged,  with  his  rocker  and  bowl  at 
his  side,  illustrating  the  golden  wealth  of  the 
Sacramento,  upon  whose  waters  are  seen  ship 
ping,  typical  of  commercial  greatness ;  and  the 
snow-clad  peaks  of  the  Sierra  Nevada  make  up 
the  background,  while  above  is  the  Greek  mot- 
to, '  Eureka  '  (I  have  found),  applying  either 
to  the  principle  involved  in  the  admission 
of  the  State,  or  the  success  of  the  miner  at 
work." 

Dr.  Wozencraft  tried  to  have  the  gold-digger 
and  the  bear  struck  out ;  and  General  Vallejo 
wanted  the  bear  removed,  or  else  fastened  by  a. 
lasso  in  the  hands  of  a  vaquero;  but  the  original 
suited  the  majority,  and  it  was  not  altered. 

The  Convention  had  been  in  session  six  weeks. 


280  THE    HISTORY   OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP.  Though  members  had  indulged  in  some  person- 
^_^_  alities,  had  always  very  freely  criticised  each 
1841).  other,  and  once  ]\Ii'.  Tefft  and  Mr.  Jones  had 
mutually  rasped  each  other  until  the  experts 
in  affairs  of  honor  interfered  and  gently  forced 
them  to  make  the  proper  apologies  inside  the 
House,  ^  harmony  had  generally  prevailed,  and 
their  work  was  crowned  with  good  feeling. 
They  had  met  as  strangers ;  they  parted  as 
friends.  Of  all  parties,  they  had,  to  an  aston- 
ishing degree,  ignored  party.  Representing  all 
sections  of  the  Union,  they  had,  to  a  wonderful 
extent,  laid  aside  sectional  prejudices,  and  given 
to  the  new  State  a  constitution  fully  up  to  the 
standard  of  the  times,  and  defaced  with  but 
few  of  those  innovations  (like  the  popularly 
elected  judiciary)  which  have  crowded  them- 
selves in  among  the  improvements  of  the  age, 
and,  for  a  season,  passed  for  such. 

On  Saturday,  October  13th,  the  Convention 
Oct.  13.  adopted  a  brief  address  to  the  people,  thanked 
General  Riley  for  his  courtesy,  and  voted  that 
he  ought  to  have  ten  thousand  dollars  a  year 
for  his  salary  while  governor ;  named  six  thou- 
sand dollars  as  a  proper  salary  for  Captain 
Halleck,  as  secretary  of  state ;  paid  Lieuten- 
■ant  Hamilton,  for  encrrossino;  the  Constitution  on 
parchment,  five  hundred  dollars  ;  signed  the  en- 
grossed copy,  Colton  Hall  meanwhile  trembling 
and  the  hills  around  the  bay  echoing  the  salute 


FINAL    ADJOURNMENT.  281 

of  tLirty-one  guns  fired  from  the  fort,  and  ad-  chap. 
journed  sine  die.  ^-^^ 

The  members  then  went  in  a  body  to  call  on  1849. 
General  Riley  at  his  house.  Captain  Sutter 
expressed  the  Convention's  thanks  for  his  aid  in 
creating  a  State  government.  General  Kiley 
replied  that  he  never  made  a  speech  in  his  life ; 
but  it  was  a  prouder  day  than  when  his  soldiers 
cheered  him  on  the  field  of  Contreras.  He 
handsomely  complimented  the  people  who  se- 
lected such  able  delegates.  The  members 
gracefully  turned  the  compliment  back  with 
three  cheers  for  the  Governor  of  California,  and 
three  more  for  "  the  gallant  soldier  worthy  of 
his  country's  glory."  "  I  have  but  one  thing 
more  to  add,"  said  the  general,  weathering  the 
cheers.  "My  success  in  the  aftairs  of  California 
is  mainly  owing  to  the  efiicient  aid  rendered  me 
by  Captain  Halleck,  the  secretary  of  state. 
He  has  stood  by  me  in  all  emergencies ;  to  him 
I  have  always  appealed  when  at  a  loss  myself, 
and  he  has  never  failed  me."  Monterey  was 
gay  with  American  flags  that  day,  and  the  few 
people  throughout  the  State,  who  had  given 
any  attention  to  puljlic  afiairs,  were  happy  over 
a  good  job  completed. 

It  required  swift  work  to  publish  the  Consti- 
tution in  English  and  Spanish,  and  spread  it 
over  so  broad  a  territory  in  those  roadless  days, 
so  that  it  could  be  fairly  canvassed  in  town  and 


282  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFOIiNIA. 

CHAP,  coimtiy,  on  the  ranches  of  the  valleys,  and  in 

■   the  mining  camps  far  up  the  mountain-sides,  by 

i84(t.   the  13th  of  November,  which  day  General  Riley 

^ov.13  ^^j  appointed  for  the  election  to  ratify  or  reject 

it,  and   to  choose  the  Congressmen  and  State 

officers  that  it  called  for.     Whether  it  was  well 

or  illy  done,  appearances  were  kept  up,  and  on 

the  day  set  the  election  came  off. 

The  people  adoj^ted  the  Constitution  by  a 
vote  of  twelve  thousand  and  sixty-four  for  it, 
to  eight  hundred  and  eleven  against  it ;  there 
being,  besides,  over  twelve  hundred  ballots  that 
were  treated  as  blanks,  because  of  an  informal- 
ity in  the  printing.  Peter  H.  Burnett  was 
chosen  governor,  getting  six  thousand  seven 
hundred  and  sixteen  votes,  while  his  com- 
petitors, W.  Scott  Sherwood,  received  three 
thousand  one  hundred  and  eighty-eight ;  J. 
W.  Geary,  one  thousand  four  hundred  and 
seventy-five;  John  A.  Sutter,  "two  thousand 
two  hundred  and  one;  and  William  M.  Stewart, 
six  hundred  and  nineteen.  John  McDougal 
was  elected  lieutenant-governor ;  and  George 
W.  Wi'ight  and  Edward  Gilbert,  getting  be- 
tween five  thousand  and  six  thousand  votes 
each,  were  elected  to  Congress. 

These  were  small  figures  for  a  State  claiming, 
six  weeks  later,  to  have  one  hundred  and  seven 
thousand  inhabitants.  Those  most  interested 
felt  ashamed  of  the  returns,  and  were  thankful 


A    EAIITY   ELECTIOX-DAr.  283 

that  they  could  plead   a   drenching  rain  and  chap. 
unusual  storm   upon  election-day   throughout  ,_^^__ 
the  country.     The  day  had  been  set  early,  in  1849. 
hopes  to  anticipate  the  rainy  season,  but  not     ^^' 
early  enough  by  a  week,  as  the  event  showed. 


284  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALrFOEJriA. 


CHAPTER  XXIL 

THE  FIRST  STATE  LEGISLATURE. 

CHAP.       Theee  Avas  a  strono-er  reason  than  that,  how- 

XXII. 

_.^_.  ever,  in  the  fact  that  the  vast  majority  looked 
1849.  upon  politics  as  a  matter  of  small  account,  in 
the  midst  of  such  a  harvest  of  gold,  especially 
as  they  expected  to  return  soon  to  their  old 
homes,  taking  their  fortunes  w^ith  them,  and 
leaving  the  State  and  its  politics  for  others  of 
different  tastes  and  more  modest  expectations, 
to  recfulate. 

A  month  after  election,  the  first  Legislature 
met  at  San  Jose.  The  Senate  consisted  of  six- 
teen members,  of  whom  San  Francisco  sent  two, 
and  the  Sacramento  and  San  Joaquin  districts 
four  each.  The  Assembly  had  thirty-six  members. 
Their  pay  was  sixteen  dollars  a  day,  and  sixteen 
dollars  mileage  for  every  twenty  miles  trav- 
elled in  going  to  or  returning  from  the  capital. 

Governor  Riley  kept  the  promise  he  had 
made  (conditioned  upon  receiving  no  orders  to 
the  contrary  from  Washington),  surrendered 
the  administration  of  civil  aftairsinto  the  hands 
of  Governor  Burnett,  and  turned  over  to  the 


THE   FIRST    LEGISLATURE.  285 

new  government  tlie  books,  papers,  and  archives  chap. 
of  the  territory.  ■^■^^^• 

In  his  message,  Governor  Burnett  advised  1849, 
that  without  a  doubt  they  had  a  right  to  pro- 
ceed at  once  to  the  business  of  legislation. 
Missouri  and  Michigan  had  started  on  their 
State  career  long  before  they  were  admitted  to 
the  Union,  and  their  right  had  not  been  se- 
riously questioned.  The  Legislature  never  hesi- 
tated a  moment  in  adopting  the  course  recom- 
mended. On  the  sixth  day  of  the  session  they 
went  into  joint  convention  for  the  ^^lection  of 
two  United  States  senators.  On  the  first  call 
of  the  roll  John  C.  Fremont  received  twenty- 
nine  votes,  and  Avas  elected.  On  the  third, 
William  M.  Gwin  received  twenty-four  votes, 
and  he  was  elected,  his  unsuccessful  compet- 
itors beino^  H.  W.  Halleck,  who  had  eio-hteeu 
votes,  and  T.  J.  Henley,  T.  Butler  King,  and  J. 
W.  Geary  dividing  between  them  the  remain- 
der. 

The  Legislature  continued  in  session  four  i850. 
months.  The  wits  of  the  day  called  it  "  The 
Legislature  of  a  Thousand  Drinks."  The  appel- 
lation may  have  been  fairly  won.  Members, 
whose  families  were  the  width  of  a  continent 
away,  found  it  a  thirstier  land  than  it  ever  has 
been  since.  But  if  they  drank  well,  they 
worked  well  too.  They  enacted  one  hundred 
and  forty  laws,  most  of  which  were  of  a  general 


286  THE   HISTORY   OF   CALIFOENIA. 

CHAP,  and   important   character",  though   some  were 

pretty  nearly  transcripts  of  the  laws  of  other 

J 860.    States,  that  have  needed  very  thorough  revision 

since   to  suit  them  to  the  peculiar  wants  of 

California. 

They  created  the  offices  required  by  the  Con- 
stitution. They  established  a  judiciary,  and  re- 
quired the  Supreme  Court,  after  its  first  two 
regular  tenns,  which  were  to  be  held  in  San 
Francisco,  to  sit  at  the  seat  of  government.  To 
each  of  the  district  judges  they  appointed  a 
salary  of  seventy-five  hundred  dollars  a  year; 
to  the  county  judges,  from  one  thousand  to  six 
thousand.  They  fixed  the  legal  rate  of  interest 
at  ten  per  cent,  per  annum,  in  case  no  express 
contract  were  made ;  but  if  it  were  agreed  to 
beforehand,  any  rate  of  interest  became  legal, 
and  the  interest,  on  failure  to  pay  it  promptly, 
could  be  added  to  the  principal,  and  itself  draw 
interest — a  law  which  was  early  found  to  tend 
to  the  ruin  both  of  borrowers  and  lenders. 
They  required  foreigners  not  naturalized  to 
pay  a  license  before  being  allowed  to  work 
the  mines — a  policy  which,  on  trial,  failed  to 
raise  any  considerable  revenue,  and  met  with 
serious  opposition  in  the  raining  districts. 

They  would  not  prohibit  the  immigration  of 
people  of  color  into  the  State,  but  they  so  far 
catered  to  the  prejudices  of  the  Chivalry,  as  to 
bar  from  the  courts  the  testimony  of  any  black, 


THE   rlRST   LEGISLATURE.  287 

mulatto,  or  Indian,  either  for  or  ao;ainst  a  white  chap. 

r  •         .  XXII 

man — a  piece  of  unjust  and  foolish  legislation,  C^^_l, 
which  it  took  thirteen  years  to  erase  from  the  1850. 
statute-book.  They  made  some  meagre  provi- 
sion for  common  schools,  and  authorized  the 
Supreme  Court  to  incorporate  colleges  when- 
ever they  could  show  an  endowment  of  twenty 
thousand  dollars.  For  murder,  and  nothing 
else,  they  established  the  death  penalty.  To 
send  or  accept  a  challenge  to  a  duel  they  de- 
clared a  crime,  and  affixed  as  a  penalty  impris- 
onment for  from  one  to  three  years,  and  a  fine 
not  to  exceed  one  thousand  dollars.  They 
adopted  the  common  law,  so  far  as  it  was  not 
repugnant  to  the  Constitution  of  the  State  or 
United  States,  and  showed  their  confidence  that 
nothing  of  importance  was  left  undone,  by  abol- 
ishing, with  a  few  exceptions,  all  laws  then  in 
force  but  those  of  their  own  enactment. 

Early  in  January  two  delegates  appeared  at 
San  Jose  with  a  curious  petition,  purporting  to 
come  from  the  people  of  the  "  new  State  of 
Deseret."  The  residents  in  the  Great  Salt 
Lake  basin  had,  in  March,  1849,  met  in  conven- 
tion and  formed  a  State  Constitution,  wdiich 
afterwards  was  approved  by  the  popular  vote. 
But,  hearing  that  California  was  about  to  hold 
a  convention,  they  chose  two  delegates  to  attend 
it,  and  urge  that  Deseret  be  included  for  a  time 
within    California.      The    delegates,    arriving, 


288  THE    HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP  found  that  the  Convention  had  adjourned. 
^_^_^  They  then  modestly  asked  California  to  call 
1850.  another  convention,  throw  aside  its  adopted  con- 
stitution, and  agree  on  boundaries  which  should 
embrace  temporarily  the  Great  Basin.  This 
done,  they  would  unite  in  recommending  Con- 
gress to  reject  without  discussion  or  debate  both 
the  State  constitutions  already  adopted.  They 
professed  to  have  authority  to  vote  against  per- 
mitting slavery,  and  urged  that  only  in  this 
way  could  the  slavery  question  in  the  territo- 
ries be  set  at  rest ;  for  Congress,  owing  to  the 
division  of  parties,  could  not  handle  it.  Re- 
ject these  terms,  and  Deseret,  "  with  her  tv/enty 
thousand  inhabitants,  and  thirty  thousand  more 
on  the  way  to  settle  within  her  boi'ders,"  would 
insist  before  Congress  upon  her  separate  ad- 
mission, with  boundaries  stretching  from  the 
Rocky  Mountains  to  the  Sierras,  and  a  wide 
strip  from  the  southern  end  of  California,  to 
give  her  access  to  the  Pacific.  Of  course,  Gov- 
ernor Burnett  recommended  the  Legislature  not 
to  accede  to  the  proposition,  and  it  was  soon 
forgotten. 

They  authorized  the  incorporation  of  towns 
out  of  any  settlement  containing  over  two  hun- 
dred people,  and  not  embracing  more  than 
three  square  miles ;  and  the  incorporation  as 
cities,  of  places  containing  two  thousand  people. 
They  also,  by  special  act,  in  spite  of  one  veto 


THE    CITY    OF    SAN    FRANCISCO.  289 

of    the    Governor,   wlio   insisted  tliat   special  chap. 

•        XXII 

legislation  Avas  not  needed  for  the  purpose,  m-  ,_._^^_, 
corporated   nine  cities — San    Francisco,  Sacra-    iSoO. 
mento,  San  Jose,  Monterey,  Los  Angeles,  San 
Diego,  Benicia,  Sonoma,  and  Santa  Barbara. 

San  Francisco  was  at  that  time  a  brisk,  noisy,  Ap'i  15 
enterprising  place,  of  from  twenty  thousand  to 
forty  thousand  inhabitants,  full  of  troubles 
about  land  titles,  much  given  to  mass  meetings 
and  other  American  ways ;  with  three  daily 
papers — the  Alta,  Journal  of  Comtnerce^  and 
Pacific  Keivs — which  advertised  seven  places 
of  worship  open  every  Sunday,  and  two  thea- 
tres ;  with  a  prison  brig ;  ^vith  steamers  on  the 
bay  running  to  Sacramento,  and  charging  "  re- 
duced rates,"  namely,  twenty  dollars  to  carry 
a  passenger  there,  or  thirty-five  to  take  him  to 
Yuba  or  Marysville;  running  to  Alviso  also, 
which  town  Governor  Burnett  and  Mr.  Hoppy 
were  just  starting,  at  the  southern  extremity  of 
the  bay,  and  charging  for  passage  through  to 
San  Jose  thirty-five  dollars ;  and  running  wher- 
ever else  freight  or  passage-money  offered  in- 
ducements enough  to  tempt  them. 

The  city  had  achieved  most  of  its  import- 
ance within  two  years.  Though  the  Mission 
Dolores  was  indeed  founded  in  1776,  there  was 
no  sign  of  settlement  on  the  beach  of  Yerba 
Buena  Cove  before  1835,  when  Captain  W.  A.  1835. 
Eiehardson,  who  had  received  the  appointment 

19 


290  THE   HISTORY   OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  of  master  of  the  harbor,  put  up  the  first  dwell- 

XXII     •  .  . 

,_^^^  mg,  a  rude  structure  with  a  sail-cloth  roof.  On 
1836.  the  4th  of  July,  1836,  Jacob  P.  Leese  finished 
a  ft'ame  house  adjoining  Richardson's  (its  site 
was  the  southwest  corner  of  Clay  and  Dupont 
streets,  where  the  St.  Francis  Hotel  yet  stands) 
in  time  for  a  house-warming  and  celebration  of 
Independence  Day  by  some  sixty  guests  invited 
from  the  first  families  in  all  the  reg^ion.     On  the 

1838.  15th  of  April,  1838,  the  first  child  was  born  in 
Yerba  Buena,  Rosalie  Leese,  whose  father  was 
the  pioneer  American  merchant,  and  her  mother 
a  sister  of  General  Vallejo.  Leese  erected,  as 
the  requirements  of  trade  required  it,  a  store 
on  the  beach,  where  now  is  the  crossing  of  Com- 
mercial and  Montgomery  Streets  ;  for  the  water- 
front, which  is  now  thrust  six  blocks  to  the  east- 
ward, at  that  time  swept  in  on  the  line  of 
Washington  Street  as  far  as  Montgomery,  and 
crossed  Market  Street  at  the  intersection  of  Bat- 

1839.  tery  and  First  Streets.  In  1839,  Governor  Al- 
varado  ordered  a  survey  of  the  plain  and  cove ; 
and  Captain  Juan  Vioget  made  the  survey, 
which  included  the  region  between  Pacific  and 
Sacramento,   Dupont   and  Montgomery  streets. 

'i84i.    In  1841,  Leese  transferred  his  property  to  the 
Hudson's  Bay   Company,  and  removed  to  So- 
noma.    That  company  did  most  of  the  business 
1846.   of  the  place  till   1846,  when  it  sold  out  and 
left. 


GROWTH    OF    SAN    FRANCISCO.  i'9l 

The  American  conquest  quickened  a  new  chap. 
growth  on  the  narrow,  sandy  plain  that  skirted 
the  base  of  Telegraph,  Rincon,  and  Russian  is47. 
hills.  In  January,  1847,  it  had  a  population 
of  three  hundred  and  a  weekly  newspaper.  In 
April  following,  it  contained  seventy-nine  build- 
ings, of  which  twenty-six  were  adobe,  thirty-one 
frame,  and  the  rest  shanties.  In  June,  with  a 
population  of  four  hundred,  it  boasted  its  second 
weekly  paper.  On  the  30  th  of  January  it  dropped 
its  old  name,  and  took  a  new  and  less  fragrant 
one.  On  the  20th  of  July,  the  lots  between 
hi2:h  and  low  water  marks,  from  Fort  Mont2:om- 
ery  (Clark's  Point)  to  Rincon  Point,  were  sold 
at  auction  under  orders  of  General  Kearny 
and  Alcalde  Bryant.  The  first  steamboat,  an 
importation  from  Sitka,  made  its  trial  trip  on 
the  bay  November  loth. 

By  the  middle  of  March,  1848,  San  Francisco  1848. 
had  two  hundred  houses  and  eight  hundred  and 
fifty  people.  On  the  3d  of  April  the  first  pub- 
lic school  was  opened — a  delay  that  would  have 
been  a  reproach  if  the  population  had  not  been 
to  so  great  a  degree  an  adult  one.  In  May  and 
June  came  the  rush  to  the  interior  which  fol- 
lowed the  announcement  of  the  gold  discovery, 
when  the  shipping  was  deserted,  stores  shut 
up,  shops  abandoned,  papers  stopped,  because 
of  the  hegira  to  the  mines.  By  November  the 
gold-hunters    were  in  good  part  back   again. 


292  THE    HISTORY    OF    CALIFOEiaA. 

CHAP,  business  resumed,  school  reopened,  the  presses 
_^_  running  again  ;  and  the  Rev.  J.  D.  Hunt  (cliosen 

1848.  "Protestant  chaplain,"  at  a  yearly  salary  of 
twenty-five  hundred  dollars,  to  be  raised  by  sub- 
scription) had  begun  a  regular  Sunday  service 
i^  the  school-house  on  Portsmouth  Square.  The 
year  showed  a  million  dollars  worth  of  goods 
imported,  and  as  much  in  value  of  coin,  but 
two  millions  of  gold-dust  had  been  exported. 

On  NeAv  Year's  Day  of  1849,  San  Francisco 

1849.  claimed  to  have  a  population  of  two  thousand, 
and  rejoiced  in  her  new  Broadway  wharf.  The 
two  Aveeklies  on  the  4th  merged  into  the  Alta  Cal- 
ifornia. The  people  had  showed  some  little  in- 
terest in  a  convention  scheme,  but  far  more  in 
the  election  of  town  councils  or  ayuntamientos, 
of  which  at  one  time  they  had  three  in  ex- 
istence, each  claiming  to  be  exclusively  the 
legal  one.  On  the  last  day  of  Februaiy  the 
pioneer  of  the  ocean  steamships,  the  Cali- 
fornia,  arrived  from  New  York,  with  General 
Persifer  F.  Smith  on  board,  to  take  command 
of  the  Pacific  department.  A  month  later 
the  steamship  Oregon  arrived  from  New  York 
with  three  hundred  and  fifty  passengers,  in- 
cluding Colonel  Geary,  who  had  a  commission 
to  act  as  postmaster  for  the  city  and  postal 
agent  for  the  coast.  On  the  13th  of  Apnl, 
General  Bennett  Riley  came,  relieving  Smith 
of  the  military  command,  and  charged,  also,  to 


\ 
SHOET   WOUK   WITH    THE   HOUNDS.  2^3 

administer  civil  affairs.  By  the  end  of  July  ^^\^- 
there  were  two  hundred  square-rigged  vessels  v^^— ^ 
in  the  harbor.  ^f^' 

This   summer  the  affair  of   "the  Hounds" 
came  off.      A  gang  of  desperadoes,  organized 
originally,  as  the}^  professed,  for  mutual  protec- 
tion in  the  mining  districts,  against  the  cheap 
labor  of  foreigners  of  Spanish  extraction,  began 
to  practise  their  outrages  openly.     They  had 
their    head-quarters    and    their    officers,    and 
claimed  to  be  "  regulators  "  of  society.    On  the 
slightest   pretence  they  would  tear  down  the 
tents  of  the  Chilians,  rob  them  of  their  valua- 
bles, and  divide  among  themselves  the  plunder. 
On  one  of  their  expeditions  a  ^^outh,  who  hap- 
pened to    be    in    their    company,  was   fatally 
wounded  by  a  foreigner.     On  Sunday,  the  15th 
of  July,  returning  from  an  excursion  to  Con- 
tra Costa,  they  paraded  the  streets  openly,  and 
procpeding  to  the  Chilian  quarter,  tore  down 
tents,  beat   their  occupants,  plundered   them, 
and   repeatedly  fired  into  their  midst.      Next 
day,  when  the  news  spread  through  the  town, 
the  public  was  warm  with  indignation.     They 
waited  on  the  alcalde,  and  urged  him  to  take 
steps  to   punish  the  oft'enders.       The    alcalde, 
by  proclamation,  summoned  a  public  meeting, 
which    assembled   at    three   o'clock  on    Ports- 
mouth Square.    Samuel  Brannan  addressed  the 
crowd.      A  generous   subscription    was  made 


294  THE    HISTORY    OF   CALIFOKNIA. 

CHAP,  for  the  relief  of  the  sufferers,  and  two  hundred 
^■^^^-  and  thii-ty  persons  enrolled  themselves  as  spe- 
1849.  cial  constables.  They  were  soon  provided  with 
muskets,  and  had  elected  a  commander  and  six 
captains.  Before  night  twenty  of  the  rioters 
had  been  arrested  and  lodged  for  safe  keeping 
on  board  the  United  States  ship  Warren.  At 
another  meeting  on  the  square,  Dr.  Gwin  and 
James  C.  Ward  were  chosen  judges,  to  be  asso- 
ciated with  Alcalde  Leavenworth  for  the  trial 
of  the  rioters ;  Horace  Hawes  was  appointed 
district  attorney,  and  Hall  McAllister  his  asso- 
ciate. On  Tuesday,  twenty-four  citizens,  act- 
ing as  a  grand-jury,  found  a  true  bill  against 
Samuel  Roberts  and  nineteen  other  "  Hounds," 
on  various  charges.  On  Wednesday  the  trials 
began,  and  were  conducted  in  all  calmness,  ])ut 
with  dispatch.  Francis  J.  Lippett  and  Frank 
Turk  assisted  Hawes  and  McAllister  as  counsel 
for  the  people,  and  P.  Barry  and  Myron  Norton 
defended  the  accused.  Twelve  jurors,  among 
whom  were  John  Sime  and  Frederick  Tesch- 
macker,  found  ten  of  the  accused  guilty  of  one 
or  all  of  the  counts  of  the  indictment,  and  the 
convicted  were  sentenced  to  different  terms  of 
imprisonment.  These  sentences  were  never  en- 
forced ;  but  the  "  Hounds  "  were  broken  up,  and 
those  who  had  been  foremost  in  the  gang  quit 
the  city. 

On  the  5th  of  August  the  first  Protestant 


FIRST    DEMOCRATIC    MEETING.  295 

cLurcli  in  California — the  property  of  the  First  chap. 
Baptist  Society — was  dedicated.  w^ 

In  October,  steamers  ])egan  to  make  regular    i849. 
trips  to  Sacramento.     The  Pioneer^  a  little  iron 
vessel  brought ^out  piecemeal  from  Boston;  the 
Mint^  also  of  iron  ;  the  propeller  McKim^  and 
soon  the  Senator^  went  into  that  line. 

The  first  large  Democratic  meeting  in  Cali- 
fornia assembled  October  25th  on  Portsmouth 
Square,  "  the  plaza,"  Colonel  Geary  acting  as 
president ;  O.  P.  Sutton  and  Annis  Merrill 
being  among  the  vice-presidents,  and  J.  Koss 
Brown  and  John  A.  McGlynn  figuring  among 
the  secretaries.  On  the  13th  of  November, 
amidst  a  heavy  rain,  the  State  Constitution  was 
approved — two  thousand  and  fifty-one  voting 
for,  and  five  agjainst  it,  in  San  Francisco. 

By  the  end  of  the  year  there  were  twenty 
thousand  people  in  town.  The  unfenced  plaza, 
as  we  have  said,  was  the  place  of  general  resort 
on  great  public  occasions.  There  were  between 
three  and  four  hundred  square-iigged  vessels  in 
the  bay,  very  many  of  which,  for  lack  of  sailors, 
never  went  to  sea  again.  The  expenses  of  the 
local  government  were  not  great,  for  the  streets 
were  not  yet  improved,  and  for  a  while  ample 
funds  had  been  raised  to  defray  them  from  the 
proceeds  of  the  sale  of  water-lots  or  of  uplands. 
Later,  however,  they  had  raised  quite  a  reve- 
nue by  licenses,  which  were  required  of  almost 


296  THE    niSTOKY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  every   trade    and    profession.     Tliey   had    no 
,__^  towu-liouse,  no  safe  jail,  no  adequate  police,  no 

1849.  hospital,  no  public  buryiug-ground. 

Collector  Collier  wrote  to  Secretary  Mere- 
dith, November  13th,  1849:  "I  am  perfectly 
astounded  at  the  amount  of  business  done  at 
this  (San  Francisco)  office.''  Six  hundred  and 
ninety-seven  vessels  had  arrived  within  seven 
and  a  half  months.  Board,  he  said,  was  five 
dollars  a  day,  without  a  room.  A  small 
room  with  a  single  bed  rented  for  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  dollars  a  month ;  wood  cost 
forty  dollars  a  cord ;  flour,  forty  dollars  a 
barrel ;  pork,  sixty  dollars.  In  lack  of  stores, 
nineteen  vessels  were  employed  as  warehouses. 
Commercially,  the  port  was  already  equal  to 
Philadelphia ! 

Such  was  t  he  rude  but  promising  town  to 
which  the  first  Legislature  gave  a  city  charter, 
which  the  people  approved  by  vote,  May  1st, 

1850.  1850.  The  charter  extended  the  city  limits  on 
the  west  to  a  line  parallel  to  Kearny  Street, 
two  miles  from  the  plaza.  The  county  had  sep- 
arate boundaries,  embracing  \vhat  afterwards 
was  made  San  Mateo  County,  and  on  the  west, 
going  some  distance  into  the  ocean. 

Sacramento  was  the  legitimate  successor  of 
Sutter's  "  New  Helvetia ;"  the  site  of  the  new 
town  being  originally  the  embarcadero  of  the 
Swiss  captain's  settlement.      The  rush  to  the 


SACRAMENTO    AND    OTHER   CITIES.  29T 

mines  had  stimulated  it  into  a  promising  trad- 
ing-place. Here  the  miners  landed  from  the 
boats  in  which  they  ascended  the  river,  and  i848. 
here  the  returning  tide  from  the  mountains 
first  struck  navigable  water.  In  October,  1848, 
there  w^as  advertised  a  sale  of  town  lots  in 
Sacramento — the  name  then  first  appearing  as 
the  designation  of  a  settlement.  In  January, 
1849,  the  first  frame  house  was  built  on  the  i849. 
bank  of  the  river,  and  before  that  year  ended, 
the  settlement  about  the  foit  moved  down.  A 
school  was  started,  but  children  were  scarce, 
and  it  languished.  By  the  spring  of  1850,  the  i850. 
permanent  population  w^as  twelve  thousand. 
A  grove  of  fine  old  buttonwoods  shaded  the 
plain  and  tempered  the  excessive  heat  of  sum- 
mer. The  Sierras,  covered  till  late  in  the  spring 
with  snow,  loomed  up  on  the  eastern  horizon, 
and  Mount  Diablo,  like  a  grand  pyramid,  lifted 
its  peak  on  the  south.  The  site  of  the  city, 
W' hich  at  once  promised  to  exceed  in  its  growth 
all  the  inland  cities  of  the  State,  w^as  but  fifteen 
feet  above  low- water  mark.  The  settlers  soon 
found  what  a  mistake  they  had  made  concern- 
ing the  grade,  for  before  January  of  1850  was 
passed,  the  place  was  flooded  by  the  rise  of  the 
river. 

As  to  the  other  cities  that  year  incorporated, 
it  was  natural  to  suppose  that  San  Jose,  in  a  pro- 
lific valley  on  the  road  to  the  great  quicksilver 


298  THE    IIISTOEY    OF    CALIFOENIA.    " 

oiiAP  niine,  would  grow  rapidly;  and  tliat  Monterey, 
^^^1-  Santa  Barbara,  Los  Angeles,  and  San  Diego 
"^^  would  slowly,  at  least,  justify  the  wisdom  of 
their  Spanish  founders.  General  Riley,  it  was 
said,  had  expressed  the  opinion  that  Benicia, 
with  its  bold  water-front  and  level  upland,  en- 
joyed a  position  far  superior  to  San  Francisco 
for  a  large  city.  Sonoma  was  solely  a  city  of 
the  future  and  of  the  imagination. 

This  first  Legislature  also  subdivided  the 
State  into  twenty -seven  counties.  General 
Vallejo  was  chairman  of  a  committee  appoint- 
ed to  report  the  derivation  and  meaning  of  their 
names.  The  General  entered  into  the  task  with 
spirit,  and  in  his  report  embodied  a  good  deal 
of  useful  and  curious  information,. of  which  we 
condense  all  that  suits  our  present  purpose. 

San  Diego  (St.  James)  takes  the  name  of 
its  chief  town,  which  lies  three  miles  distant 
from  the  harbor  discovered  by  Viscaino  in 
1602.  The  town  had  its  name  from  the  first 
mission  established  in  Uj)per  California,  July 
16th,  1769. 

Los  Angeles,  the  City  "  of  the  Angels,"  found- 
ed by  order  of  the  Viceroy  of  New  Spain  in  1781. 
Santa  Barbara  was  named  after  the  little 
town  established  in  1780,  about  midway  be- 
tween San  Diego  and  Monterey,  to  protect  the 
five  missions  that  occupied  the  choice  spots  of 
that  pleasant  region. 


9 

DERIVATION    OF    COUNTY   KAMES.  299 

San  Luis  Obispo  after  its  principal  town,  the  chap. 
site  of  the  mission  established  September  1st, 
1772,  by  Junipero  Serra  and  Jose  Cavalier.  i850. 

Monterey :  when  Viscaino,  in  1602,  discov- 
ered the  harbor  cut  in  the  coast  where  one  of 
two  parallel  coast  ranges  of  mountains  strikes 
the  sea;  he  named  it  Monterey,  after  the  count, 
with  perhaps  an  allusion  to  the  pines—"  king 
of  the  forests  " — that  still  blacken  the  southern 
point  that  shoots  out  to  make  the  indentation 
a  harbor.  It  was  the  official  residence  of  four- 
teen governors,  and  generally  the  capital  of  the 
province. . 

Santa  Cruz,  the  "  Holy  Cross,"  from  the  mis- 
sion on  the  north  side  of  Monterey  Bay. 

San  Francisco :  Father  Junipero  Serra  was  a 
Franciscan  monk,  and  he  named  the  Mission 
Dolores,  established  in  1776,  of  which  he  had 
the  immediate  superintendence,  after  the  foun- 
der of  his  order.  The  presidio,  established  the 
same  year,  and  the  magnificent  bay  took  the 
same  name,  and  the  little  village  of  Yerba 
Buena,  finding  itself  no  longer  an  obscure  hide 
port,  but  a  stirring  American  town,  assumed  it 
also. 

Santa  Clara,  from  the  mission  established  in 
January,  1777. 

Contra  Costa,  "  opposite  coast,"  was  the  nat- 
ural designation  of  the  county  across  the  bay, 
eastward  from  San  Francisco.     Yet  it  had  a 


% 
300  THE    IIISTOKY    OF    CALIFOENIA. 

CHAP,  narrow  escape  of  ])eing  profanely  christened 
^_^,_,  Diablo^  after  tlie  noble  mountain  that  rises 
1850.  fi'om  its  very  centre  and  keeps  guard  over  a 
wonderful  expanse  of  valley  and  inland  sea. 
In  1806  a  military  expedition  marched  against 
the  tribe  Bolgeres,  then  encamped  at  the  west- 
ern foot  of  the  mountain.  At  the  moment 
that  victory  was  inclining  to  the  Indians,  a 
mysteiious  stranger,  dressed  in  extraordinary 
costume,  suddenly  appeared,  indulged  in  some 
curious  antics,  and  disappeared  up  the  moun- 
tain. The  defeated  soldiers  were  told  that  the 
stranger  made  his  appearance  there  daily,  and 
the  Indians  called  him  "Puy,"  or  Evil  Spirit. 
Several  lea:islators  thouo-ht  the  mountain  en- 
titled  to  name  the  county,  but  the  Puy  got  his 
full  dues  in  the  naming  of  the  mountain,  and 
the  county  a  very  creditable  designation  in 
Conti'a  Costa. 

Marin  was  the  chief  of  a  troublesome  tribe 
of  Indians  which  a  military  exploring  expe- 
dition encountered  in  1815.  Marin  was 
taken  prisoner,  but  he  escaped  from  San 
Francisco,  rallied  his  tribe,  and  harassed  the 
troops  continually.  Being  closely  pursued, 
he  took  refuge  in  the  little  islands  at  the  mouth 
of  San  Rafael  Inlet,  which  were  hence  called 
the  Maria  Islands.  In  1824,  Marin  was  again 
carried  captive  to  San  Francisco.  When  he 
was  set  at  liberty  he  retired  to  the  San  Rafael 


DERIVATION    OF   COUNTY   NAMES.  301 

Mission,  and  there  died  in  1834.  His  prowess  and  chap. 

XXII 

the  islets  that  befriended  him  named  the  count}^  <_^_«- 

Sonoma  (the  "  Valley  of  the  Moon  ")  is  the  isso. 
Indian  designation  of  the  Arcadian  region,  at 
whose  chief  settlement  the  bear  flas:  Avas 
raised  in  1846.  The  Chocuyens  possessed  the 
valley  when  the  missionaries  visited  it  and 
founded  there  a  mission.  They  called  the 
chief  Sonoma,  and  the  tribe  (dependants  on 
Marin)  adopted  that  as  their  tribal  name. 

Solano :  The  great  chief  of  the  Suisunes,  on 
receiving  baptism,  gave  up  his  heathen  title, 
Sem-Yeto  (fierce  hand),  and  accepted  that  of 
Solano,  in  honor  of  Francisco  Solano,  the  mis- 
sionary. The  county,  embracing  the  fine  arable 
land  and  marshes  which  the  Suisunes  claimed, 
not  unnaturally  was  given  his  name. 

Yolo  is  a  corruption  of  the  Indian  Yoloy, 
which  signified  a  region  thick  with  rushes,  and 
was  the  name  of  the  tribe  ownins;  the  tule 
lands  west  of  the  Sacramento  and  bordering 
on  Cache  Creek. 

Napa  was  the  name  of  the  brave  tribe  that 
occupied  that  most  charming  of  valleys  which 
stretches  from  San  Pablo  Bay  to  Mount  St. 
Helen's.  The  tribe  was  very  numerous  and 
troublesome  until  1838,  when  the  small-pox 
almost  swept  it  out  of  existence. 

Mendocino  assumed  the  name  of  the  western- 
most cape  of  the  coast,  discovered  in  1543,  and 


302  THE   HISTORY   OF    CALIFOKNIA. 

oiTAP.  named    after   Mendoza,   the    viceroy   of  New 

Spain  and  the  author  of  the  expedition. 
1850.  Sacramento  (the  Sacrament).  Lieutenant 
Moraga  gave  the  great  river  which  bears  this 
name  tlie  designation  of  "Jesus  Maria,"  and 
to  its  principal  branch,  that  of  "Sacramento." 
But  before  the  American  conquest  the  great 
river  had  assumed  the  name  of  the  Sacramento, 
and  the  branch  was  called  the  Feather.  The 
riv^er  named  the  county. 

El  Dorado :  The  county  within  whose  limits 
the  first  discovery  of  gold  in  paying  quantities 
Avas  found  fairly  earned  the  name  of  El  Dorado. 

Sutter:  John  Augustus  Sutter,  a  native  of 
Switzerland,  and  formerly  a  military  officer 
under  Charles  X.,  emigrated  to  California  in 
1839,  proposing  to  found  a  colony.  He  ob- 
tained a  grant  from  the  Mexican  Government, 
fixed  the  site  of  his  colony  on  the  east  side  of 
the  Sacramento,  and  south  of  tlie  American 
Fork,  named  it  New  Helvetia,  built  and  manned 
a  fort,  and  by  his  ever-open  hospitality  made 
his  home  the  rallying  and  recruiting  place  of 
emigrants  from  over  the  mountains.  To  name 
a  county  after  him  was  but  simple  justice. 

Yuba  is  a  misspelling  of  Uva,  a  name  that 
an  exploring  party  in  1824  gave  to  a  tributary 
of  the  Feather,  on  whose  banks  they  found 
growing  immense  quantities  of  wild  grape-vines. 

Butfce  is  the  connnon  French  term  for  mound, 


DEEIVATION    OF   COUNTY   NAMES.  303 

and  the  symmetrical  mounds  that  rise  without  chap. 

•         *  •  •  •  XXII 

foot-hills  out  of  the  plain  to  a  mountain  height,  ^_,^_^ 
east  of    the    Sacramento,    were   named  "The    1850. 
Buttes"  in  1829  by  a  detachment  of  hunters, 
headed  by  Michael  Laframbeau,  of  the  Hudson 
Bay  Company.     Those  peaks  name  the  county. 

Colusa  is  an  Indian  word  of  unknown  ori- 
gin, the  appellation  of  a  once  numerous  tribe  on 
the  west  side  of  the  Sacramento. 

Shasta  was  the  name  of  a  tribe  of  Indians 
that  resided  at  the  foot  of  the  noblest  moun- 
tain in  California. 

Trinity  drew  its  name  from  Trinity  Bay,  dis- 
covered on  the  anniversary  of  Trinity  festival. 

Calaveras:  An  immense  number  of  skulls  were 
found  by  Captain  Moraga  in  the  vicinity  of  a 
creek,  vvdiich,  from  that  circumstance,  was  called 
Calaveras,  or  the  river  of  Skulls.  The  story  was, 
that  the  tribes  from  the  Sierras  came  down  to 
the  valley  to  fish  for  salmon.  To  this  the  valley 
Indians  objected,  and,  as  the  conflict  was  irre- 
pressible, a  bloody  battle  was  fought,  and  three 
thousand  dead  bodies  were  left  to  whiten  the 
banks  with  their  bones.  The  county  in  which 
the  river  rises  assumed  its  name. 

San  Joaquin:  In  1818,  Lieutenant  Gabriel 
Moraga  explored  the  valley  of  rushes,  and 
named  a  rivulet,  which  rises  in  the  Sierras  and 
empties  into  Lake  Buena  Vista,  San  Joaquin, 
after  the  legendary  father  of  th«  Virgin.      The 


304  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  rivulet  named  the  great  river ;  tlie  river  named 

tlie  valley  and  tlie  county. 
1850.        Tuolumne :  A  corruption  from  the  Indian  word 
talmalmime^  meaning  a  cluster  of  stone  wigwams. 

Mariposa  signifies  l)utterfly.  A  hunting  party 
of  Californians,  in  1807,  observed  the  trees 
about  the  river,  where  they  pitched  their  tents, 
gorgeous  with  butterflies.  They  named  the 
river  Mariposa,  and  the  river  named  the  county. 

It  is  a  curious  comment  on  the  small  import- 
ance attached  to  politics  in  those  times,  that 
there  was  really  danger  lest  the  first  Legisla- 
ture should  be  dissolved  for  lack  of  a  quorum. 
Two  senators  and  three  assemblymen,  includ- 
ing the  speaker,  early  resigned,  though  some  of 
them  did  it  to  take  other  offices  to  which  they 
were  elected.  One  assemblyman  never  appeared 
to  claim  his  seat.  Many  were  absent  most  of 
the  time.  Many  talked  of  the  great  sacrifices 
they  made  in  staying.  In  the  quiet  seclusion 
of  San  Jose,  they  fancied  that,  with  the  return 
of  spring  and  the  end  of  the  rains,  business 
would  revive  with  great  energy :  they  repented 
their  dal)bling  in  j^olitics.  A  sharp  rebuke, 
administered  by  a  joint  committee,  shamed 
members  into  more  attention. 

After  the  speaker  deserted  his  post,  John 
Bigler  was  elected  to  occupy  it.  After  Nathan- 
iel Bennet  resigned  his  senatorship  to  accept 
the  position  of  Associate   Justice   of  the  Su- 


DAVID    C.    BRODEEICK.  305 

preme  Court,  David  C.  Broderick,  of  San  Fran-  chap. 

•  •  XXII 

CISCO,  was  elected  to  his  place  by  twenty-five  ^__^^,^ 
hundred  and  eight  out  of  only  twenty-six  hun-  1850. 
dred  and  nine  votes  cast  in  his  district.  This 
was  the  first  appearance  in  State  politics  of  a 
man  who  was  destined  to  exert  an  extraordi- 
nary influence  on  the  j)olitical  future  of  the 
State.  He  was  born  in  Washington,  in  the 
year  1819,  the  son  of  a  stone-cutter.  He  re- 
moved in  1825  to  New  York  City,  with  his 
l^arents,  who  soon  after  died.  He  was  a  rough, 
honest,  self-reliant  boy.  He  was  connected 
with  the  Fire  Department,  kept  a  drinking- 
place,    and   meddled   with  local   politics.      In 

1845  he  was  elected  to  preside  over  a  con- 
vention for  securing  a  new    city  charter.     In 

1846  he  was  nominated  for  Congress,  and  was 
defeated.  In  1849  he  sailed  for  California. 
Without  education,  without  flattering  antece- 
dents, he  determined  to  become  a  power  in  the 
State.  For  this  he  educated  liimself ;  to  this 
devoted  all  his  time  and  his  extraordinary  en- 
ero'ies.  He  soon  made  his  mark  in  the  Lecrisla- 
ture,  and  controlled  the  apparent  executive. 
But  it  was  the  politics  rather  than  the  laws  of 
California  that  he  shaped ;  he  aimed  to  manage 
men  rather  than  municipal  measures. 

20 


306  THE   HISTORY   OF   OALIFOEJSIA. 


CHAPTER   XXIIL 

WAITING     ON    CONGRESS    FOR    ADMISSION    TO    TEE 

UNION. 

xxm  ^^  California  was  fairly  launched  and  started 
— ~,-^  on  lier  career  as  a  State.  Will  Cons-ress  admit 
1849.  }igp  j-Q  ^}jg  sisterhood  of  States,  or  keep  ber  out  ? 
— a  State  by  the  voice  of  her  people,  and  in  all 
constitutional  forms,  yet  without  a  State's  rep- 
resentation in  the  Senate,  or  a  State's  voice 
among  the  Representatives. 

The  Thirty -first  Congress  met  at  Washington 
on  the  3d  of  December,  1849  ;  but  the  House 
could  not  organize  until  the  22d,  when,  af- 
ter adopting  the  plurality  rule,  Howell  Cobb, 
of  Georgia,  received  one  hundred  and  two 
votes,  and  was  elected  Speaker,  over  Robert 
C.  Winthrop,  Avho  received,  one  hundred — the 
remaining  twenty  being  scattered.  President 
Zachary  Taylor  then  sent  in  his  first  annual 
Message- — the  one  that  contained  the  famous 
passage  which  made  the  critics  of  the  world  so 
merry :  "  We  are  at  peace  with  all  the  world, 
and  seek  to  maintain  our  cherished  relations  of 
amity  with  the  rest  of  mankind." 


307 
Referrinsr  to  the  affairs  of  California,  he  said  chap. 

.    •  •  XXIII 

that  as  no  civil  government  had  been  provided 
for  it  by  Congress,  the  people,  impelled  by  the  i849. 
necessities  of  their  political  condition,  had  met 
in  convention,  and  the  latest  advices  gave  him 
reason  to  suppose  they  had  formed  a  constitu- 
tion and  State  government.  It  was  believed 
they  would  shortly  apply  for  the  admission  of 
California  into  the  Union  as  a  sovereign  State. 
Should  such  be  the  case,  and  should  their  con- 
stitution be  conformable  to  the  requisitions  of 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  he  rec- 
ommended their  application  to  a  favorable 
consideration.  By  awaiting  the  action  of  the 
people  of  the  territory,  who  would  lay  the 
foundation  of  a  republican  form  of  government 
in  such  principles  and  organize  its  power  in 
such  form  as  would  seem  to  them  most  likely 
to  effect  their  safety  and  happiness,  all  uneasi- 
ness might  be  avoided,  and  confidence  and  kind 
feeling  preserved.  *'  With  a  view  of  maintain- 
ing the  harmony  and  tranquillity  so  dear  to  all," 
said  he,  "  we  should  abstain  from  the  introduc- 
tion of  those  exciting  topics  of  a  sectional  char- 
acter which  have  hitherto  produced  painful 
apprehensions  in  the  public  mind ;  and  I  repeat 
the  solemn  warning  of  the  first  and  most  illus- 
trious of  my  predecessors  against  furnishing 
any  ground  for  characterizing  parties  by  geo- 
graphical discriminations." 


308  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFOKIS^A. 

CHAP.       It  was  excellent  advice,  but  nobody  took  it. 

XXIIT  •  • 

The  President  informed  Congress  that  a  collec- 
1849.  tor  had  been  appointed  for  San  Francisco  under 
the  act  extending  the  revenue  laws  over  Cali- 
fornia. He  advised  the  confirmation  of  the  col- 
lections made  there  under  military  authonty, 
and  that  the  avails  be  expended  within  the 
territory,  or  paid  into  the  treasury  to  meet  ap- 
propriations for  the  improvement  of  its  harbors 
and  rivers.  Arrans^ements  for  determininof  the 
sites  of  light-houses  on  the  coast  had  been  made, 
and,  appreciating  the  mineral  wealth  of  Califor- 
nia, and  its  advantages  by  position,  he  proposed 
reconnoissances  of  several  routes  for  railroads  to 
the  Pacific. 

General  Sam  Houston,  of  Texas,  on  the  4th 
of  January,  introduced  a  proposition  which, 
while  conceding  that  Congress  had  no  power 
over  the  subject  of  negro  slavery  within  the 
limits  of  the  United  States,  either  to  prohibit, 
interfere  with,  or  establish  it  in  any  State  or 
Territory,  for  the  sake  of  harmony  affirmed 
that  if  the  people  in  the  newly-acquired  Terri- 
tories south  of  the  parallel  of  thirty-six  degrees 
thirty  minutes  north  latitude  [the  Missouri 
Compromise  line,  and  nearly  the  latitude  of 
Monterey]  should  establish  negro  slavery  in 
the  formation  of  their  State  governments,  it 
should  l)e  deemed  no  objection  to  their  admis- 
sion into  the  Union. 


1850 
Jan. 


A    QUESTIOl^   OF    EXECUTIVE   INFLUEIS^CE.  309 

On  the  21st  of  January,  General  Tayloi',  chap. 
in  answer  to  a  resolution  of  inquiry,  stated 
frankly  that  lie  had  urged  the  formation  of  i850. 
State  governments  in  California  and  New  Mex- 
ico. For  this  purpose  he  had  sent  out  T.  Butler 
King  as  bearer  of  disj^atches,  with  a  salaiy  of 
eight  dollars  a  day  and  expenses.  He  had  not 
hesitated  to  express  to  the  people  of  the  terri- 
tories his  desire  that  they  form  a  plan  of  State 
government,  and  submit  it  to  Congress,  with  a 
prayer  to  be  admitted,  but  he  had  authorized 
no  Government  agent  to  influence  any  election 
or  convention,  or  to  interfere  as  to  the  provi- 
sions or  restrictions  of  the  constitution.  The 
officers  sent  to  California  by  his  predecessor 
w^ere  instructed  to  promote  measures  leading  to 
the  same  end.  His  motive  had  been  a  simple 
desire  to  afford  Congress  an  opportunity  to 
avoid  a  bitter  dissension. 

Eight  daj's  afterwards,  Henry  Clay  presented 
a  series  of  couipromise  propositions  to  the 
Senate.  The  first  proposed  to  admit  California 
to  the  Union,  ^dth  suitable  boundaries,  and 
without  any  restriction  by  Congress  as  to  the 
exclusion  or  introduction  of  slavery  within  her 
boundaries.  The  second  affirmed  that  Cono-ress 
ought  to  establish  Territorial  governments  for 
all  the  rest  of  the  territory  acquired  from 
Mexico,  without  adopting  any  restriction  or  con- 
dition on  the  subject  of  slavery.     Another  de- 


310  THE    HISTORY    OF    CALIFOENIA. 

CHAP,  clnred  it  inexpedient  to  abolish  slavery  in  the 
District  of  ColumLia,  ^Yhile  slaverj'  existed  in 
1850.  Maryland,  without  the  consent  of  the  people  of 
Maryland  and  of  the  District,  and  without  com- 
pensation to  the  slave-owners.  Another  de- 
clared it  expedient  to  prohibit  the  slave-trade 
in  the  District.  Others  announced  that  more 
effectual  provision  ought  to  be  made  for  the  res- 
titution and  delivery  of  fugitive  slaves,  and  that 
Congress  had  no  power  to  prohibit  the  trade  in 
slaves  between  the  States. 

The  debate  that  followed  upon  these  propo- 
sitions engrossed  the  attention  of  the  Senate 
almost  exclusively  for  nearly  two  months,  and 
they  were  not  finally  disposed  of  until  Septem- 
ber. Mr.  Foote,  of  Mississippi,  saw  no  objection 
to  admitting  all  of  California  above  the  line  of 
thirty-six  degrees  thirty  minutes,  as  a  Free  State, 
providing  another  Slave  State  could  be  carved 
out  of  Texas,  so  as  to  preserve  the  equiponder- 
ance  between  the  Slave  and  Free  States  of  the 
Union. 

Mr.  Mason,  of  Virginia,  deeply  regretted 
Mr  Clay's  admission  that  by  law  slavery  was 
already  abolished  in  New  Mexico  and  Cali- 
fornia— a  doctrine  nevei'  assented  to,  so  far  as 
he  knew,  until  then,  by  any  senator  represent- 
ing on©  of  the  slaveholding  States. 

"  Never,"  said  Jefferson  Davis,  of  Mississippi, 
"will  I  take  less  than  the  Missouri  Compro- 


HENKY    CLAY    ON    SLAVERY   EXTENSION.  311 

raise  line  extended  to  the  Pacific  Ocean,  witli  chap. 

XXTII 

the  specific  recognition  of  the  right  to  hold  _^^_^ 
slaves   in   the  territory  below  that   line,    and    i850. 
that  before  such  Territories  are  admitted  into 
the  Union  as  States,  slaves  may  be  taken  there 
from  any  of  the  United  States,  at  the  option  of 
the  owners." 

To  which  Mr.  Clay  nobly  replied :  "  Com- 
ing from  a  Slave  State,  as  I  do,  I  owe  it  to  my. 
self,  I  oAve  it  to  truth,  I  owe  it  to  the  subject  to 
state,  that  no  earthly  power  could  induce  me  to 
vote  for  a  specific  measure  for  the  introduction 
of  slavery  where  it  had  not  before  existed, 
either  south  or  north  of  that  (Missouri  Com- 
promise) line.  Coming,  as  I  do,  from  a  Slave 
State,  it  is  my  solemn,  deliberate,  and  well-ma- 
tured determination  that  no  power — no  earthly 
power — shall  compel  me  to  vote  for  the  positive 
introduction  of  slavery,  either  south  or  north 
of  that  line.  If  the  citizens  of  those  teriitories 
(California  and  New  Mexico)  choose  to  estab- 
lish slavery,  I  am  for  admitting  them  with  such 
provisions  in  their  constitutions;  but  then  it 
will  be  their  work,  and  not  ours,  and  their  pos- 
terity will  have  to  reproach  them,  and  not  us, 
for  forming  constitutions  allov\^ing  the  institu- 
tion of  slavery  to  exist  among  them." 

William  R.  King,  of  Alabama,  objected  to 
California's  mode  of  procedure.  He  preferred 
to  train  peo2:)le  through  a  Territorial  govern- 


312  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFOENIA. 

ment  for  the  exercise  and  enjoyment  of  onr  in- 
stitutions. 

1850.  On  the  13th  of  February,  President  Ta^■lor 
apprised  Congress  by  message,  that  California 
had  organized  a  State  Government,  and  through 
her  senators  and  representatives  was  applying 
for  admission  into  the  Union. 

It  was  upon  the  motion  to  refer  this  mes- 
sasre  to  the  Committee  on  Territories,  that  Mr. 
Calhoun,  already  prostrated  with  his  last  sick- 
ness, prepared  his  speech,  which  was  read  to 

Mar. 4.  the  Senate  on  the  4th  of  March  by  Senator  Ma- 
son. He  asked  what  ^vas  to  be  done  with  Cali- 
fornia if  she  should  not  be  admitted  ?  and  him- 
self answered  that  she  must  be  remanded  back 
to  the  territorial  condition,  as  was  done  in  the 
case  of  Tennessee.  The  irregularities  in  her 
case,  he  said,  were  immeasurably  greater  and 
offered  much  stronger  reasons  for  pursuing  that 
course  than  did  those  of  Tennessee.  "But," 
said  he,  "  California  may  not  submit.  That  is 
not  probable ;  but  if  she  should  not,  when  she 
refuses,  it  will  be  time  for  us  to  decide  what  is 
to  be  done."  Mr.  Calhoun  held  that  the  indi- 
viduals in  California  who  formed  the  constitu- 
tion of  a  State  without  first  receiving  the 
authority  of  Congress  so  to  do,  usurped  the  sov- 
ereignty of  a  State,  and  acted  in  open  defiance 
of  the  authority  of  Congress ;  what  they  did 
was  revolutionary  and  rebellious  in  its  charac- 


SPEECHES    OF    CALHOUIT,  WEBSTEE,  AIS'D    SEWAKD.       313 

ter,  and  anarcliical  in  its  tendency.     If  General  chap. 

.  .  XXIII 

Rilev  had  ordered  the  election  of  deleo^ates  to  , 

the  constitutional  convention  without  authority,  1850. 
he  ou2:ht  to  be  tried,  or  at  least  reprimanded, 
and  his  acts  disavowed.  As  the  Government 
had  done  neither,  he  presumed  that  his  course 
was  approved.  "  If  you  admit  California,"  said 
he,  "  you  exclude  us  from  the  acquired  territo- 
ries with  the  intention  of  destroying  irretrieva- 
bly the  equilibrium  between  the  two  sections." 

Three  days  later,  Daniel  Webster  addressed 
the  Senate  on  ]\L-.  Clay's  resolutions.  He  re-  Mar.T- 
iterated  his  jDrevious  expressions  that  we  had 
territory  enough  ;  that  we  should  follow  the 
Spartan  maxim — Improve,  adorn  what  you  have, 
seek  no  further.  He  held  slavery  to  be  ex- 
cluded from  California  by  the  law  of  nature. 
He  would  not  vote  to  put  any  prohibition  into 
any  act  providing  a  Territorial  government.  He 
"  would  not  take  pains  to  reaiBrm  an  ordinance 
of  nature,  nor  to  re-enact  the  will  of  God."  In 
this  speech  he  uttered  his  remarkable  sentence 
concerning  peaceable  secession. 

William   H.  Seward   said  :  "  Let  California 

come   in."     ^'  California,    that   comes  from  the  March 

11 
clime  where  the  west  dies  away  into  the  rising 

east — California,  which  bounds  at  once  the  em- 
pire and  the  continent — California,  the  youthful 
queen  of  the  Pacific,  in  the  robes  of  freedom 
gorgeously  inlaid  with  gold,  is  doubly  welcome. 


314  THE   HISTORY    OF   CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP.  She  stands  justified  for  all  the  irregularities  in 
lier  method  of  coming."  He  praised  her  that 
she  would  not  remain  in  the  condition  of  a  mili- 
tary colony.  The  irregularities  of  her  method 
of  coming,  of  which  so  much  complaint  was 
made,  were  the  following:  She  came  uncere- 
moniously, without  a  preliminary  consent  of 
Congress ;  she  assigned  her  own  boundaries 
without  the  previous  authority  of  Congress; 
she  was  too  large  ;  no  census  had  been  taken  ; 
no  laws  prescribed  the  qualifications  of  suffrage 
before  her  constitutional  convention  Avas  held  ; 
she  came  constrained  by  executive  influence  to 
come  as  a  Free  State  and  to  come  at  once.  Of 
these  last  charges  the  first  clause  was  denied, 
the  second  clause  was  admitted,  nor  was  it  a 
serious  usurpation  in  the  executive  to  recom- 
mend that  a  State  relieve  itself  and  him  from 
the  exercise  of  military  authority.  Mr.  Seward 
believed  that  the  perpetual  unity  of  our  empire 
hung  on  the  decision  of  that  day.  He  urged 
that  the  consent  of  Congress  be  granted  at 
once — they  would  never  agree  if  not  then. 
"  Nor,"  said  he,  "  will  California  abide  delay. 
I  do  not  say  she  contemplates  independence, 
because  she  does  not  anticipate  rejection." 
"  Either  the  stars  and  strij^es  must  wave  over 
her  ports,  or  she  must  raise  aloft  a  standard  for 
herself"  He  asked  if  it  would  be  a  mean  am- 
bition to  set  up  within  fifty  years  monuments 


THE    SLAVERY    QUESTION.  315 

like  those  wliicli  two  hundred  years  liad  estab-  chap. 

lished  on  the  Atlantic  coasts  ?    As  to  her  ability  , ^ 

to  become  independent,  he  reminded  the  Senate  i850. 
that  she  was  farther  away  than  England,  out  of  ^^ 
the  reach  of  railroads  or  unbroken  steam  naviga- 
tion ;  the  prairie,  and  mountain,  and  desert,  an 
isthmus  of  foreign  jurisdiction,  and  a  cape  of 
storms  interposed  between  her  and  the  armies 
of  the  Union.  "  You  may  send  a  navy  there; 
but  she  has  only  to  open  her  mines  and  she  can 
seduce  your  navies  and  appropriate  your  float- 
ing bulwarks  to  her  own  defence,"  If  she  went, 
he  intimated  that  Oregon  would  go  also,  and 
then  the  Pacific  coast  was  lost.  So,  with  an 
argument  which  few  Californians  would  have 
used,  Mr.  Seward  insisted  upon  the  immediate 
admission,  while  he  opposed  any  compromise. 

Mr.  Seward  showed  how  earnest  he  was,  by  a 
confession  which  brought  Senator  Foote  to  his 
feet  for  an  explanation,  and  startled  not  a  little 
his  anti-slavery  friends.  Repugnant  to  his 
wishes  as  such  a  necessity  would  be,  he  said 
that  even  if  California  had  come  seeking  ad- 
mission as  a  Slave  State,  in  view  of  the  extra- 
ordinary circumstances  of  her  coming,  and  of 
the  consequences  of  the  dismemberment  of  the 
empire  consequent  upon  her  rejection,  he  would 
have  voted  for  her  admission.  It  was  in  this 
famous  speech  of  Mr.  Seward's  that  the  sentence 
occurred  which  made  him  the  best-abused  man 


316  THE   IIISTOEV    OF    CALIFOENIA. 

CHAP,  in  the  country  for  ten  years  following  :    "  There 

YYTTT  •  • 

■  is  a  higher  law  than  the  Constitution."  He  re- 
1850.  plied  to  a  point  which  Mr.  Webster  had  made, 
that  there  is  no  just  human  enactment  Avhich  is 
not  a  re-enactment  of  the  law  of  God.  He  could 
not  rely  on  climate  to  exclude  slavery,  for  he 
was  born  in  a  land  where  slavery  existed, 
thousfh  it  was  a  land  all  north  of  the  fortieth 
parallel  of  latitude. 

While  the  debate  was  pending,  John  Bell, 
April,  of  Tennessee,  had  sul^mitted  a  series  of  compro- 
mise resolutions,  the  sixth  of  which  accepted 
the  constitution  of  California,  and  admitted  the 
State  on  an  equal  footing  in  all  respects  with 
the  original  States.  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  of 
Illinois,  from  the  Committee  on  Te?ritories, 
doubting  the  fate  of  the  proposed  compromise, 
introduced  two  bills  for  a  settlement  ..ithout 
a  compromise — one  to  admit  California,  the 
other  to  establish  territorial  governments  for 
Utah  and  New  Mexico.  Both  had  their  second 
reading,  and  then  Mr.  Benton's  proposition  to 
consider  the  California  Bill  was,  on  Mr.  Clay's 
motion,  tabled — ayes,  twenty-seven ;  noes,  twen- 
ty-five. So  it  was  determined  that  there  should 
be  some  compromise  before  the  question  was 
settled. 

Mr.  Foote  now  moved  the  reference  of  Mr. 
Bell's  resolutions  to  a  committee  of  thirteen, 
without    instructions.      Mr.    Benton    opposed 


COilPROMISE   PEOPOSITIONS.  317 

"makino^  an  omnibus"  of  the  resolutions,  and  chap. 

.  .  .  XXIII 

urged  the  impropriety  of  causing  the  passage  '_^_^ 
of  one  important  bill  to  depend  upon  the  adop-    1850. 
tion  or  rejection  of  any  other  bill.     His  motion 
to  keep  the  California  question  separate  from 
all  others  was  lost — ayes^  twenty-three ;  noes, 
twenty-eight. 

Mr.  Foote's  motion,  so  amended  as  to  refer 
Mr.  Clay's  as  well  as  Mr,  Bell's  resolutions  to  a 
select  committee,  was  adopted.  The  committee 
of  thirteen  was  selected  by  ballot  as  follows : 
Henry  Clay  of  Kentucky,  Chairman  ;  Mr.  Dick- 
inson of  New  York,  Mr.  Phelps  of  Vermont, 
Mr.  Bell  of  Tennessee,  Mr.  Cass  of  Michigan, 
Mr.  Webster  of  Massachusetts,  Mr.  Berrien  of 
Georgia,  Mr.  Cooper  of  Pennsylvania,  Mr.  Downs 
of  Louisiana,  Mr.  King  of  Alabama,  Mr.  Man. 
gum  of  North  Carolina,  ]VIi\  Mason  of  Virginia, 
and  Mr.  Brio-ht  of  Indiana — seven  from  Slave 
States,  six  from  Free  States. 

Early  in  May,  Mr.  Clay  reported,  and  among  Maj. 
the  propositions  of  his  report  was  one  admitting 
California  forthwith  as  a  State,  with  the  bound- 
aries adopted  in  her  constitution.  These  com- 
promise resolutions,  and  the  "  Omnibus  Bill " 
which  embraced  their  principal  provisions,  were 
vigorously  debated  for  the  next  four  months. 

Mr.  Soule,  of  Louisiana,  moved  that  all  south 
of  the  parallel  of  thirty-six  degrees  thirty  min- 
utes be  cut  off  from    California,   and   formed 


318  THE   HISTORY    OF   CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  into  a  Territory  to  be  called  South  Californi-a^ 
which  should  be  admitted  as  a  State  when  it 

1850.  were  able  and  willing,  with  or  without  slavery, 
as  its  people  might  desire.  This  was  rejected 
by  nineteen  ayes  (all  Southern  votes)  and 
thirty-six  noes.  Mr.  King  moved  that  the 
})arallel  of  thirty-five  degrees  thirty  minutes 
be  the  southern  boundary  of  the  State  of 
California ;  rejected,  ayes  twenty,  noes  thirty- 
seven.  Mr.  Davis,  of  Mississippi,  moved  that 
thirty-six  degrees  thirty  minutes  be  the  boun- 
dary; lost,  ayes  twenty-three,  noes  thirty-two.  • 
Mr.  Turney  moved  that  the  j^eople  of  California 
be  enabled  to  form  a  new  constitution ;  lost, 
ayes  nineteen,  noes  thirty- three.  Mr.  Yulee 
moved  to  remand  California  to  a  tei-ritorial  con- 
dition, and  limit  her  southern  boundary;  lost, 
ayes  twelve,  noes  thirty-five.  Mr.  Foote  moved 
to  erect  all  that  part  of  California  that  lies 
south  of  the  thirty-six-thirtieth  parallel  into 
the  "  Territory  of  Colorado ;"  lost,  ayes  thirteen, 
noes  twenty-nine.  Mr.  Turney  moved  to  fix 
the  southern  boundary  l)y  the  line  of  thirty-six 
thirty ;  lost,  ayes  twenty,  noes  thirty.     On  the 

Aug.  12th  of  August,  the  Southern  members,  having 
exhausted  all  parliamentary  tactics  to  stave  it 
off,  the  question  was  put  on  ordering  the  Cali- 
fornia Bill  engrossed  for  its  third  reading,  for 
by  this  time  the  several  measures  of  the  Com- 
promise Bill  had  been  severed  and  brought  for- 


THE  CALIFORNIA  BILL  PASSES  THE  SENATE.  319 

ward  in  distinct  bills.  It  prevailed,  mjes  thirty-  chap. 
three  (all  the  Free  State  senators  and  Mr.  Bell, 
Mr.  Benton,  Mr.  Houston,  Mr.  Spruance,  Mr. 
Wales,  and  Mr.  Underwood  voting  aye)  ;  noes 
nineteen  (all  from  Slave  States).  Next  day 
the  bill  had  its  third  reading,  and  passed,  ayes 
thirty-four,  noes  eighteen. 

Immediately  Senators  Mason  and  Hunter 
of  Virginia,  Butler  and  Rhett  of  South  Caro- 
lina, Turney  of  Tennessee,  Jefferson  Davis  of 
Mississippi,  Atchison  of  Missouri,  and  Morton 
and  Yulee  of  Florida,  entered  their  protest 
against  it.  They  thought  it  due  to  themselves, 
the  people  of  their  care,  and  their  posterity,  to 
leave  an  enduring  memorial  of  their  opposition 
to  the  measure.  They  wished  to  place  upon 
record  the  reason  of  their  opj)osition  to  a  bill 
whose  consequences  might  be  so  durable  and 
portentous  as  to  make  it  an  object  of  deep 
interest  to  all  who  came  after  them.  This  rea- 
son, reiterated  in  several  forms,  was,  that  the 
admission  of  California  made  an  odious  discrim- 
ination against  the  property  of  fifteen  slave- 
holding  States.  It  denied  those  States  a  right 
to  the  equal  enjoyment  of  the  territory  of  the 
Union.  The  Government,  they  said,  had  in 
effect  declared  that  the  exclusion  of  slavery 
from  the  territory  of  the  United  States  was  an 
object  so  high  and  important  as  to  justify  a 
disregard,   not   only  to  all  the  principles    of 


320  THE    HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  sound  policy,  but  also  of  tlie  institution  itself. 

■  "Against  this  conclusion  we  must   now   and 

1850.  forever  protest,  as  it  is  destructive  of  the  safety 
and  liberties  of  those  whose  rights  have  been 
committed  to  our  care,  fatal  to  the  peace  and 
equality  of  the  States  which  we  represent,  and 
must  lead,  if  persisted  in,  to  the  dissolution  of 
that  confederacy  in  which  the  slaveholding 
States  have  never  sought  more  than  equality, 
and  in  which  they  will  not  be  content  to  remain 
with  less." 

In  this  protest  the  abandoned  dogma  of  Mr. 
Calhoun,  that  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  carries  slavery  with  it,  into  whatever 
territory  it  extends,  is  assumed  as  a  true  doc- 
trine. Afterwards  it  was  announced  by  Judge 
Taney,  in  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  from  the 
bench  of  the  Supreme  Court.  The  hint  at  se- 
cession on  the  admission  of  California  as  a 
Free  State,  and  the  consequent  destruction  of 
the  balance  in  the  Senate  between  the  Slave 
and  Free  States,  was  regarded  at  the  time  as 
little  more  than  a  very  common  threat.  After- 
wards, it  was  remembered  as  sicjnificant  that 
even  then  the  great  rebellion  was  in  contempla- 
tion. 

The  California  Bill  went  to  the  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives, and  was  read  twice  and  committed 
Sept.    on  the  28th  of  August.     On  the  7th  of  Septem- 
ber it  came  up,  and  Mr.  Boyd,  of  Kentucky, 


CALIFOENIA    ADMITTED.  321 

moved  to  append  tlie  bill  organizing  the  Tern-  chap. 

toiy  of   New  Mexico.      Mr.  Vinton,  of  Ohio,  ^^ ; 

objected  to  that,  as  out  of  order.  Speaker  is50. 
Cobb  overruled  the  objection,  but  the  House  '''^^' " 
refusino'  to  sustain  his  decision,  the  amend- 
ment  was  not  considered.  Jacob  Thompson,  of 
Mississippi,  moved  to  cut  off  from  California 
all  below  the  line  of  thirty- six  forty,  which 
was  rejected  —  a2/e-9,  seventy-six ;  7we-9,  one 
hundred  and  sixty-one.  Then  the  bill  Avas 
ordered  to  its  third  reading  and  passed — a'l/es, 
one  hundred  and  fifty ;  ?ioes.  fifty-six,  all  South- 
erners, 

The  bill  went  to  the  Pi'esident  for  his  signa- 
ture, and,  on  the  9th  of  September,  Millard 
Fillmore,  who,  by  the  death  of  General  Taylor, 
had  succeeded  to  the  Presidential  chair,  signed 
it,  and  California  was  admitted  the  thirty-first 
State  of  the  American  Union. 

Senators  Fremont  and  Gwin  were  admitted 
to  their  seats  as  representatives  from  the  new 
State  in  time  to  give  a  vote  upon  one  or  two 
of  the  Compromise  measures.  All  the  proposi- 
tions of  Mr.  Clay's  Omnibus,  though  severed 
from  each  other,  and  presented  in  separate  bills, 
and  two  of  them,  afterwards  reunited,  were 
adopted.  So  the  joy  over  California's  admission 
was  not  unalloyed  at  the  North,  nor  the  sorrow 
at  the  South  without  compensation.  She  was 
admitted  as  a  Free  State  only  on  condition  of 

21 


322  TIIE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  leaving  New  Mexico  and  Utah  open  to  slavery, 
^^"^'  the   concession    of    perpetual  slavery   in   tlie 
185(X    District  of  Columbia,  the  passage  of  a  law  for 
^^*P^"    the  recapture  of  fugitive  slaves,  which  griev- 
ously offended   the    North,  and   a   stipulation 
that  the  subject  of  slavery  should  never  again 
be  agitated  in  either  chamber  of  Congress. 

These  compromises,  which  were  so  distasteful 
to  both  sections,  really  seemed  for  a  time  to 
bring  repose  to  the  public  mind.  The  National 
Democratic  Convention  of  June,  1852,  which 
nominated  Fi'anklin  Pierce  for  President,  re- 
solved that  the  Democratic  Party  would  abide 
by  and  adhere  to  a  faithful  execution  of  the 
compromises  of  1850.  The  Whig  National 
Convention  of  June,  1852,  which  nominated 
"VVinfield  Scott  for  President,  recommended  and 
acquiesced  in  them  by  a  vote  of  three  hundred 
and  twelve  ayes  to  seventy  noes.  These  two 
great  parties  embraced  the  vast  majority  of  the 
voters  of  the  Union. 

There  was  outside  of  these  parties  a  vigilant 
and  restless  minority,  which  never  ceased  agi- 
tating the  slavery  question,  and  it  was  making 
rapid  inroads  into  both  parties ;  yet  the  i-epose 
might  have  remained  much  longer  unbroken, 
but  for  the  fact  that  they  who  most  deprecated 
agitation,  startled  the  political  world  four  years 
later  with  the  doctrine  that  the  compromises 
of  1850  made  inoperative  and  void  the  Missouri 


THE    PEICE    OF   ADMISSION".  323 

Compromise,  and  insisted  on  putting  tliat  doc-  chap. 
trine  into  the  Kansas-Nebraska  Bill.  After  ._^_^ 
wliicli  there  was  no  more  "  repose,"  and  the  isso. 
compromises,  by  virtue  of  which  California  ^^^' 
struggled  into  the  Union,  were  treated  as  no 
longer  binding  beyond  the  letter  of  the  law.^ 
that  embraced  them. 


324  THE   HISTOHY    OF    CALIFOKXIA. 


CHAPTEE  XXIV. 

"THE  FALL    OF  '49   AND   TEE  SPRIXG    OF  '50." 

CHAP.       News  of  the  admission  of  the  State  into  the 
5X1 V.  UjjJQjj  reached  Sau  Francisco  on  the  18th  of 
1850.    October,   1850,  by  the  steamer   Oregon.     Of 
^^^-    course  it  could  create  no  surprise ;   the  event 
had    been    looked    on    as    foreordained    ever 
since  the  conquest.     The  people  claimed  it  as 
a  right,  and  had  never  contemplated  the  possi- 
bility of  its  being  denied.     Notwithstanding,  it 
was  a  2:reat  thino;  to  have  the  seal  of  national 
authority  put  on  their  State  proceedings ;    it 
was  a  grand  thing  to  be  recognized  as   part 
of    the   American   Union ;    and   so   the    Ore- 
gon's tidings  were   greeted  Avith  high    enthu- 
siasm.    The  29th  was  set  aside  in  San  Fran- 
cisco as  a  day  of  celebration  over  the  event.    A 
procession,  of  which  the  Chinese  were  a  striking 
.  feature,  an  oration    ])y  Judge  Nathaniel   Ben- 
\  nett  on  the  plaza,  the  recitation  of  an  ode  writ- 
ten by  a  lady,  the  tiring  of  guns,  the  discharge 
of  artillery,  the  display  of  fireworks,  and   the 
illumination  by  bonfires,  made  the  day  and  the 
niirht  memorable. 


HIE   TENT   AGE.  325 

From  the  fall  of  1849  to  the  fiill  of  1850  was  chap. 
the  tent  era  of  California — the  strange,  flush  ^^"^^ 
times  of  the  young  State.     Most  of  the  j)opnla-  i849- 
tion  felt  themselves  pilgrims  in  the  land,  tern-  ^^^^' 
porary  residents,  enduring  merrily  severe  pri- 
vations for  the  sake  of  a  future  of  plenty  and 
enjoyment  in  a  distant  home.     Property  was 
changing  hands,  fortune  changing  favorites,  with 
astonishing  rapidity.     The  poor  man  of  yester- 
day was  the  rich  man  of  to-day.     The  servant, 
running  away  from  his  master,  tarried  a  month 
or  two  in  the   mines,  and  returned  with  gold 
enough  to  l^uy  his  master  out.     Social  distinc- 
tions were  nearly  rubbed  out.    Almost  all  men 
felt  that,  whether  they  were  born  so  or  not, 
they  had  become  free  and  equal. 

The  average  wages  made  by  miners  in  1849 
were,  perhaps,  twenty  to  thirty  dollars  a  day  ; 
yet  in  rich  diggings  an  average  of  from  three 
hundred  to  five  hundred  a  week  was  not  un- 
common for  weeks  together.  The  abundance 
of  gold  in  the  hands  of  people  not  used  to  it 
made  them  lavish.  There  was  very  little  sit- 
tino;  down  and  calculatins;  how  to  economize, 
and  there  was  no  "Poor  Richard"  pleading 
frugality,  and  pointing  out  the  penury  that 
must  follow  thnftlessness.  And  if  there  was 
any  shrewd  Yankee  still  following  the  precepts 
of  his  early  education,  and  in  an  open-handed 
generation  trying  to  I'emember  that  it  is  not 


326  THE   HISTORY   OF   CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  what  a  man  makes,  but  what  he  saves,  that  de- 
^_^  terraines  him  rich  or  poor,  his  daily  memoran- 
1849-    dum  of  expenses  must  have  seemed  very  shock- 

1850.      - 

If  he  breakfasted  at  a  restaurant  in  San 
Francisco  he  had  a  dollar  to  pay  for  a  beef- 
steak and  a  cup  of  coffee.  For  fresh  eggs  he 
must  pay  from  seventy-five  cents  to  a  dollar 
each.  His  dinner  would  cost  him  from  a  dollar 
and  a  half  to  five  dollars,  according  to  his  apj)e- 
tite.  A  "  square  meal "  at  a  cleanly  tavern  cost 
from  tw^o  dollars  upward.  Washing  was  eight 
dollars  for  the  dozen  pieces ;  it  even  happened, 
they  say,  that  some  sent  their  dirty  clothes  to 
China  to  be  washed. 

Thegreat  body  of  immigrants  were  adult  males. 
The  lack  of  refined  and  virtuous  women  gave  so- 
ciety a  rough,  unpolished  aspect.  The  fame  of  the 
gold  placers  had  tempted  a  inish  of  all  sorts  of 
men,  and  it  must  be  confessed  that  for  a  while  it 
seemed  that  the  doubtful  and  dangerous  classes 
were  in  excess  over  the  orderly.  The  lightest 
drift  of  the  floating  population  of  the  world 
washed  up  here.  Not  only  the  restless  charac- 
ters of  Christendom,  but  of  heathen  countries 
also,  obeyed  the  strong  attraction.  Some  mid- 
dle-aged good  men  came,  impelled  by  a  sense  of 
duty  to  try  one  chance  more  of  acquiring  for 
their  dependent  families  the  competence  that 
they  had  failed  to  command  at  home.     Some 


CHARACTER    OF   THE    E?,IIGRANTS.  327 

left  tlieir  families,  l)ecause  it  was  no  cross  to  chap. 

leave  them.      Others  came  because  enterprise  ^^ ; 

spuiTed  them,  and  there  was  nothing  to  hold  i849- 
them  back.  Others  came  with  motives  of  am- 
bition ;  they  were  conscious  of  ha\ang  failed  in 
the  old  country — in  a  new  one  they  would  try 
life  over  again.  They  had  counted  the  offices 
to  be  filled,  and  came  on  to  serve  their  coun- 
try, and  be  maintained  at  the  public  expense. 
There  were  a  few,  a  very  few,  who  had  faith  in 
the  future  of  the  region ;  who  intelligently  ap- 
preciated the  geographical  and  commercial  po, 
sition  of  California,  and  came  with  a  sincere  de- 
sire to  see  its  foundations  laid  in  justice  and  its 
walls  squared  by  Christian  principle.  Alto- 
gether, and  chiefly,  it  was  not  the  best  material 
out  of  which  to  construct  a  model  society  ;  but 
it  was  strong,  enterprising,  swift,  and  positive. 
It  mio;ht  become  either  noble  or  infamous.  It 
was  only  incapable  of  mediocrity. 

On  landing  at  San  Francisco,  which  early 
became  the  principal  port  of  debarkation,  or  on 
arriving  over  the  Sierras,  almost  all  dashed  first 
into  the  mines.  Placer  mining  could  he  learned 
in  a  day  ;  any  one  who  could  shovel  dirt,  stand 
up  to  his  knees  in  running  water,  and  shake  a 
pan,  knew  the  art.  It  indeed  required  skill  to 
"  prospect "  successfully  ;  but  if  one  doubted 
his  ability  in  that  matter,  he  had  only  to  follow 
the  multitude,  and  do  as  they  did,  or  take  up 


328  THE   HISTORY    OF   CALIFOEIflA. 

CHAP,  the  deserted  claim  wliicli  a  company,  hearlug 

^^51'  of  better  "finds,"  had  quit. 

1849-       A  few   weeks'  or  months'  exj^erience    satis- 

^^^^'  fied  the  multitude  that  mining  was  not  their 
forte,  and  they  retreated  from  it,  providing 
they  had  the  money  to  get  off  with.  If  a 
man  knew  any  trade,  he  could  make  more 
than  the  miner's  average  by  work  he  liad 
learned  to  love.  If  accustomed  to  farming, 
he  could  raise  potatoes  or  beans  or  corn  in 
some  rich  nook  close  by  the  miner's  camp, 
and  be  more  sure  of  a  liberal  profit  than  the 
miner  whom  he  fed.  Any  Vjody  could  keep  a 
store.  Any  one  who  could  erect  a  cabin,  and 
get  a  barrel  of  whiskey  safely  into  it,  could 
keep  a  hotel.  The  miners  pioneered  the  farm- 
ers, mechanics,  and  tradesmen;  and  wherever 
they  stopped  for  a  few  months  on  a  bar  or  in  a 
canon,  a  village,  perhaps  a  city,  sj)raug  up  as 
if  by  magic.  Still,  all  the  while,  there  was  a 
strono;  tide  of  successful  or  disojusted  miners 
setting  back  to  San  Francisco. 

The  currency  was  gold-dust — that  is,  small 
scales,  globules,  or  nuggets  of  gold.  At  first 
they  rudely  measured  it;  then  as  rudely 
weio'hed  it — a  silver  dollar's  weicrht,  the  weiofht 
of  a  jack-knife,  the  weight  of  an  ounce  avoirdu- 
pois. Then  they  began  to  melt  the  dust  into 
bars,  ingots,  or  slugs,  stamping  the  initials  of 
the   assayer  to   give   credit  to  its  designated 


THE    CUEEENCT   AND    WAGES.  329 

weight  where  scales  were  not  accessil^le.  Not  chap. 
till  1854,  when  tlie  United  States  gave  them  a  1_^_] 
Branch  Mint  at  San  Francisco,  was  the  cuiTency  i849- 
regulated  with  any  satisfaction.  "^  ' 

The  cheapness  of  gold  raised  the  value  of 
every  thing  else.  Silver  was  scarce  ;  no  change 
under  a  quarter-  of  a  dollar  was  given  or  taken. 
What  was  worth  buying  was  surely  worth  a 
quarter.  Wages  were  exceedingly  high :  rough 
labor  at  San  Francisco  brou2:ht  eio-ht  dollars  a 
day  ;  carmen  earned  from  fifteen  to  twenty  dol- 
lars a  day  ;  "  help  "  was  scarce  at  one  hundred 
to  two  hundred  dollars  a  month. 

While  labor  was  in  such  demand,  and  so  well 
paid,  it  could  not  be  deemed  degrading.  For 
carrying  a  trunk  a  mile  a  man  would  get  a 
week's  wages  at  Eastern  rates.  So,  few  scru- 
pled to  do  for  money  whatever  offered.  There 
were  the  most  astonishing  changes  in  em^^loy- 
ments.  Persons  who  had  been  preachers  or 
doctors  or  lawyers  at  home,  shouldered  bag- 
gage, did  street- work,  drove  drays,  if  they  could 
muster  the  capital  to  buy  a  horse  and  cart, 
blacked  boots,  served  at  table,  and  were  not 
ashamed. 

Almost  every  company  that  bought  a  ship 
at  the  East,  and  came  around  the  Horn  in  her, 
put  in  a  full  freight  of  eatables,  thinking  that 
if  they  only  were  not  perishable,  they  could 
scarcely  fail  to  find  a  profitable  market.     So 


330  THE   niSTOllY   OF   CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  the  market  was  s^lutted  witli  certain  articles, 
while  others  no  money  would  buy.  Potatoes 
were  dumped  into  the  bay  by  the  ton,  not  com- 
manding a  price  sufficient  to  pay  for  boating 
them  to  the  shore.  Word  ^vould  go  East  by 
steamer  that  the  market  was  bare  of  butter  or 
tobacco,  or  some  style  of  dry  goods  for  which 
a  day  or  two  of  hot  weather  made  some  in- 
quiry. The  five  or  six  sharp  Eastern  merchants 
who  were  favored  with  the  news,  would  give 
quick  dispatch  to  half  a  score  of  clippers, 
freighted  with  the  articles  desired.  The  first 
one  in  would  make  the  fortune  of  the  shippers, 
the  tardy  ones  find  no  market.  In  the  spring 
of  1850  such  quantities  of  tobacco  had  arrived 
at  San  Francisco,  for  which  there  was  no  de- 
mand, that  rather  than  pay  the  exorbitant 
prices  of  storage,  the  full  chests  were  used  to  pave 
the  muddy  street-crossings.  The  resident  mer- 
chants generally  sold  on  commission,  so  the  ruin 
was  on  the  paities  abroad  for  whom  they  acted 
as  agents.  The  Eastern  merchants  then  tried 
assorting  cargoes ;  if  one  article  had  to  be  cast 
into  the  street,  some  other  one  might  cover  all 
losses,  and  secure  a  handsome  profit  on  the 
whole  venture.  Sometimes  it  would  seem  as  if 
they  fancied  that  wliatever  was  not  wanted  at 
home  would  be  in  demand  here,  and  San  Fran- 
cisco was  heaped  and  piled  with  odd,  impracti- 


A    WET   WINTER.  331 

cable,  useless  goods,  cramming  the  sparse  ware-  chap. 
houses,  and  overflowing  them.  w-^-w 

Houses  framed  and  ready  to  be  put  together  1849- 
without  the  aid  of  any  tool  but  an  axe  and  a 
hammer,  were  sent  out,  some  fine  specimens  of 
which  still  survive,  wearing  a  pleasant,  homely 
look,  very  noticeable  for  a  fashion  which  never 
prevailed  here.  When  there  began  to  be  a 
panic  about  fires,  corrugated  iron  plates  were 
shipped  in  consideral)le  quantities.  Some 
houses  built  of  this  material  still  remain,  very 
rusty  and  leaky;  and  the  materials  of  some 
that  have  been  torn  down  to  make  room  for 
brick  buildings  furnish  a  more  durable  than 
sightly  fence  for  the  suburban  gardens. 

The  winter  of  1849  and  1850  proved  to  be  a 
very  wet  one — the  "  wettest  one,"  the  pioneers 
insisted,  until  1861-62.  The  fact  that  the 
streets  were  mthout  pavements,  and  the  people 
chiefly  domiciled  in  tents,  no  doubt  enhanced 
the  discomforts  of  the  season,  and  contributed 
to  give  it  a  bad  name.  When  a  man  has  noth- 
ing but  a  piece  of  canvas  over  him,  and  cannot 
set  foot  into  the  street  without  sinking  to  the 
ankle  in  mud,  and  especially  when  he  has  no 
family  in  his  wretched  lodging-place,  and  has 
to  "  find  himself,"  a  tolerably  moderate  rainy 
season  goes  inevitably  for  a  "  horrid  winter." 
With  the  opening  of  that  spring,  all  who  were 


332  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 


CHAP, 

XXIV. 


able,  and  expected  to  stay  on  the  coast,  pre- 
pared more  respectal^le  house-accommodations. 
^^t^~        A  mono;  the  curious  consio-uments  of  the  early 

1850.  »  .  .     o  *^ 

days  were  omnibuses,  which,  because  the  streets 
were  not  easily  traversed  by  heavy-wheeled 
vehicles,  were  planted  and  employed  as  restau- 
rants. Old  ships,  which  never  could  get  hands 
enough  to  go  to  sea  again,  were  beached  at  high 
tide.  They  served  for  enviable  boarding-houses. 
As  streets  were  laid  out  and  constructed  into 
the  bay,  many  of  these  were  left  standing.  As 
the  sand-hills  were  wheeled  down  to  the  flats, 
and  the  grades  raised,  these  grew  firm  in  the 
foundations  of  the  city.  Upon  more  than  one 
such  was  built  up  a  superstructure  in  the  form 
of  a  house.  If  it  was  a  hotel,  it  still  retained 
the  name  of  the  ship  which  was  its  foundation. 
The  ship  AiJollo  was  used  as  a  store  ;  the  Eu- 
pliemia  as  a  prison,  while  moored  in  the  bay. 
Still  others,  beached  in  more  slowly-growing 
parts  of  the  town,  were  left  to  rot  for  years,  un- 
used. But  as  boats,  sloops,  and  schooners  were 
needed,  and  the  price  of  labor  declined,  their 
timbers  and  old  iron  were  got  out  and  saved. 
Some  of  the  best  craft  in  the  fleet  of  coastwise 
and  river  vessels  that  a  dozen  years  later  vexed 
the  harbors  and  navigable  streams  of  California 
were  made  out  of  the  skeletons  of  ships  origin- 
ally built  on  the  New  England  coast. 

The  saw-mill  was  soon  at  work,  splitting  the 


STYLE    OF   BIJILDmG.  333 

redwoods,  which  crowned  innumerable  heights,  chap. 
into  boards,  shingles,  and  joists.  Then  wooden 
houses  were  ran  up  almost  in  a  day.  The  joists  1849- 
were  set  in  the  ground,  and  a  floor  laid,  the  up- 
rights erected,  and  the  frail  structure  grew  story 
by  story.  Cloth  answered  for  j^artitions  and 
ceilings,  and  paper  for  paint.  These  combus- 
tible shells  brought  the  rent  of  substantial 
houses.  If  the  roof  would  shed  water  in  win- 
ter, and  the  flimsy  walls  stand  up  against  the 
winds  of  summer,  it  was  enough.  Throw  a 
spark  of  fire  into  such  materials,  and  unless  a 
pail  of  water  were  at  hand  to  quench  it,  it  was 
of  little  use  to  ring  the  fire-bells.  Nothing  but 
a  wide  vacant  space  could  stop  the  ravages  of 
the  conflagration. 

Four  great  fires  San  Francisco  suffered  during 
this  memorable  term.  The  first  broke  out  in 
Dennison's  Exchange,  a  grand  gambling-saloon 
on  the  south  side  of  the  Plaza,  on  the  morning 
of  the  24th  of  December,  1849.  It  burned 
over  half  the  block,  and  destroyed  more  than  a 
million  dollars  worth  of  property.  Before  the 
ruins  had  stopped  smoking,  much  of  the  ground 
was  rebuilt  and  occupied  again.  On  the  4th 
of  May,  1850,  at  four  o'clock  in  the  morning, 
fire  ao-ain  broke  out  near  the  same  site.  This 
time  it  sAvept  over  three  blocks,  from  Montgom- 
ery to  Kearny  Street,  and  from  Clay  to  Jack- 
son  Street,   destroying    three    million    dollars 


334  THE    HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  worth  of  property.      In  ten  days,  more  than 

■^■^^^"  half  the  bui'nt   district  was  rebuilt.     On  the 

18-io-  14th  of  June,  1850,  another  fire  laid  in  ashes 

1850.    ^-^^    district    bounded  by  Kearny,  Clay,   and 

California    streets  and  the  bay,  and  the  dam- 

ao-es  were  estimated  at  four  million  dollars.  On 

the  morning  of  September  17th,  1850,  a  fourth 

fire  consumed  the  buildings,  mostly  of  wood, 

and  but  one  story  high,  on  the  tract  bounded 

by  Dupont  and  Montgomery,  Washington  and 

Pacific    streets.      The    damage  was   variously 

estimated  at  from  a  quarter  to  half  a  million  of 

dollars. 

Men  grew  credulous  because  there  were  so 
many  unquestionable  marvels  as  to  the  occa- 
sional finding  of  gold  in  nuggets,  or  lying  loose 
in  "  pockets  "  of  rocks.  Early  in  1850,  two  nug- 
gets of  gold  were  found,  weighing  about  twenty- 
three  230unds  each.  Others  of  not  quite  such 
astonishing  size  were  brought  to  light  in  1849. 
Every  such  case  set  half  wild  the  miners  who 
were  toiling  at  a  claim  that  paid  less  than  at 
first,  or  whose  early  promise  had  not  l)een  kept. 
Very  soon  they  were  sorely  given  to  "  I'ushes." 
In  June,  1849,  a  mountaineer  named  Green- 
wood told  the  miners  at  Coloma  that  he  had 
seen  gold  in  abundance  at  Truckee  Lake,  The 
news  spread  swiftly,  though  noiselessly,  and 
hundreds  left  good  diggings  to  try  their  luck 
at  Truckee  Lake.     They  returned  soon    after 


snNmG  RUSHES.  335 

thorougMy  destitute.     They  found  the  place,  chap. 
])ut  no  color  of  gold  there. 

In  May  of  1850,  the  Gold  Lake  fever  broke  i849- 
out.  Two  miners  were  overheard  by  a  third 
talking  of  a  lake  on  whose  shores  the  gold  lay 
loose  like  pebbles.  The  third  man  guessed 
that  the  wonderful  region  was  Gold  Lake,  a 
little  sheet  of  water  not  far  from  Downie- 
ville.  He  began  at  once  preparations  to  go 
to  it,  talking  freely  meanwhile  of  what  he  had 
seen  there.  The  story  was  whispered  from  one 
to  another,  and  thousands  of  men  deserted 
claims  where  they  were  making  from  twenty  to 
forty  dollars  a  day,  and  dashed  off  to  the  seclu- 
ded pond — whence  they  returned  a  few  months 
later  without  any  thing  to  show  for  their  pains. 

It  seems  strange  now  that  practical  men  were 
so  often  and  easily  deluded.  But  it  must  be 
I'emenibered  that  the  majority  labored  under 
the  impression  that  they  came  to  California  just 
one  trip  too  late,  and  they  did  not  choose  to 
lose  the  second  chance  at  a  fortune  by  tardiness. 
Besides,  the  true  tales  that  were  told  and  illus- 
trated by  the  full  belts  of  gold  buckled  about 
the  waists  of  the  narrators,  were  scarcely  less 
astonishing  to  the  inexperienced  than  the  wild- 
est fable  that  was  poured  into  the  ears  of  the 
experienced,  whose  credulity  thrived  on  what 
they  had  seen. 

These  rushes  afterwards  became  so  common 


336  THE   IUSTv)IlY    OF    CALIFOENIA. 

CHAP,  that  no  year   passed  witliout  one  or  more  of 
■  them.      Those   who   went   and  saw  for  them- 

1849-  selves,  were,  on  their  return,  instead  of  being 
^  '  the  butt  of  their  companions,  regarded  with 
admiration.  They  had  "  seen  the  elephant  " — 
had  experienced  the  joy  of  waking  out  of  a  de- 
lusion on  the  very  spot  where  the  charm  was 
to  work  its  wonders.  It  grew  into  a  habit  with 
some  to  take  every  fever,  and  join  in  every  rush. 
At  heart  they  thought  fortune  must  favor 
those  who  took  all  the  chances ;  but  they  pro- 
fessed an  unconquerable  desire  to  see  the  end 
of  every  humbug.  Doubtless  there  are  some 
in  the  State  who  have  personally  explored 
the  truth  or  falsity  of  every  grand  mining  story 
that  has  excited  the  public  since  the  first  stam- 
pede for  Coloma. 

Land,  of  course,  acquired  a  high  value  about 
the  centres  of  j)opuhition,  and  troubles  sprang 
up  between  the  squatters,  who  claimed  by  pre- 
emption or  actual  possession,  and  the  chiimants 
under  Spanish  or  Mexican  grants.  In  August, 
1850,  there  were  serious  riots  at  Sacramento. 
Most  of  the  land  there  was  claimed  under 
conveyances  from  Sutter,  yet  it  was  sprinkled 
with  squatters.  The  Sutter  claimants  got  favor- 
able decisions  from  the  courts  ;  but  the  squatters 
pulled  out  their  pistols  and  refused  to  be  oust- 
ed. Several  of  them  were  arrested  and  impris- 
oned.  Their  friends  rushed,  armed,  to  the  rescue, 


SQUATTER    EIOTS — ^GAMBLmG.  337 

and  a  collision  occurred  between  them  and  tlie  chap. 
sheriff's  2^osse.  Several  squatters  were  killed.  l_i^_j 
Of  the  sheriff's  part}',  one  was  killed  and  others  isio- 

1     1  1850. 

wounded. 

The  gamblers  of  the  world  met  here;  the 
foremost  of  that  desperate  and  wretched  class 
swarmed  to  San  Francisco  like  vultures  to  the 
carcass.  The  recklessness  with  which  money 
was  squandered  made  it  their  paradise.  The 
homelessness  of  the  people  furnished  them  vic- 
tims in  abundance.  The  absence  of  municipal 
law,  or  the  neglect  of  its  officers,  left  them  with- 
out restraint  to  induVe  their  career. 

Soon  the  choicest  business  locations  in  town 
were  occupied  as  gambling  saloons.  The  plaza 
was  surrounded  by  them.  The  Parker  House 
rented  for  one  hundred  and  ten  thousand  dol- 
lars a  year ;  more  than  half  the  amount  was 
paid  by  gamblers.  The  "El  Dorado,"  while 
a  tentj'iifteen  by  twenty-five  feet  on  the  ground, 
rented  for  forty  thousand  dollars  a  year  to  gam- 
blers." 

These  saloons  were  fitted  up  with  all  the 
attractions  of  gilded  mirrors,  pictures  more 
costly  than  chaste,  and  plaster  statuary.  The 
gold  was  heaped  upon  the  tables  in  piles  that 
made  the  richest  feel  poor  as  they  gaped  at 
them.  The  miner,  who  had  filled  his  buckskin 
pouch  with  gold  and  his  bones  with  rheuma- 
tism after  months  of  toil,  dropping  down  to  the 

22 


338  THE   HISTORY    OF   CALIFOENTA. 

CHAP,  city  on  business  or  pleasure,  or  on  his  way  East, 
'  could  scarcely  pass  by  the  023en  doors,  where  so 
1849-  many  thronged,  without  entering  from  curi- 
^^^^'  osity.  He  saw  there  men  pocketing  by  a  lucky 
throw  of  the  dice  more  money  than  his  pouch 
held.  Possibly  he  saw  a  man  whom  at  home 
he  had  regarded  as  a  model  of  morality,  staking 
his  whole  substance  on  the  chance  of  a  card. 
The  foolish  fellow  must  needs  try  bis  luck  too, 
is  "  dead  broke  "  by  the  experiment,  and  now 
must,  of  course,  hurry  back  to  the  mines  to  be- 
gin the  world  again.  Men  gambled  who  did 
not  know  a  card  when  they  came  into  the  place ; 
some  from  mere  love  of  the  excitement ;  some 
hopefully  to  snatch  the  means  of  getting  back 
to  their  families,  unquiet,  anxious,  and  sick 
with  hope  deferred ;  some  recklessly,  because 
they  were  alone  in  the  world,  and  none  would 
suffer  with  their  loss. 

Without  law,  there  was  an  unwritten  law 
taken  for  granted,  that  dealt  justice  to  rich  and 
poor  alike  with  rigid  exactness.  In  the  mines, 
where  every  thing  depended  on  the  good  faith 
of  man  to  man,  theft  was  the  mortal  sin,  and 
the  eighth  commandment  was  deemed  altoo-ether 
the  most  important  of  the  decalogue.  Men 
frequently  wore  their  gold  in  belts  about  them  ; 
still,  a  very  successful  miner  must  have  some 
sort  of  deposit  for  what  he  could  not  lug  about 
his  person.     So  he  buried  it  under  his  cabin- 


LYNCH   LAW.  339 

floor,  or  by  tlie  roots  of  some  privately  marked  chap. 
tree,  or  in  some  other  equally  secret  spot,  where 
a  spying  neighbor  would  be  very  likely  to  1849- 
catch  him  hiding  it.  But,  woe  to  the  thief  who  ^^^^' 
despoiled  him  !  When  a  robbery  was  com- 
mitted, they  rallied  from  all  the  camps  about, 
to  hunt  the  culprit,  and,  when  found,  to  try 
him.  Judge  Lynch  presiding.  The  jury  were 
intolerant  of  long  trials.  The  examinations 
were  sharp  and  brief,  the  questions  apt  to  be 
leading.  When  the  jury  found  a  verdict  of 
guilty,  the  miserable  prisoner  was  run  up  by 
the  neck  to  a  limb  of  the  nearest  tree.  The 
very  swiftness  of  Justice  saved  her  from  being 
called  into  frequent  requisition.  Lynch  law 
knew  no  delays,  and  made  some  terrible  blun- 
ders, which,  while  they  scared  evil-doers  none 
the  less,  brought  this  border  law  into  disre- 
pute. 

About  the  meanest  class  that  cursed  the  com- 
munity was  a  brood  of  unprincipled,  labor- 
hating,  professional  politicians,  who  gathered 
from  all  corners  of  the  States,  fetching  with 
them  the  worst  vice§  peculiar  to  the  political 
system  of  the  locality  they  had  relieved  by  leav- 
ing. Some  had  found  politics  unprofitable  at 
home ;  but,  in  their  pursuit,  had  acquired  hal>its 
that  unfitted  them  for  any  less  exciting  employ- 
ment. There  were  others  who  had  been  edu- 
cated to  believe  that  offices  were  made  for  their 


340  THE    HISTORY   OF   CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP.  enjojTnent.     To  demand  one  as  much  entitled 

^^_^  them  to  places  at  the  public  crib,  as  more  modest 

1849-    folks,  by  work,  entitled  themselves  to  a  living. 

'^  ■    These  were  the  "  chivahy,"  whose  touchstone 

was  devotion  to  slavery.    If  they  came  from  the 

South,  they  spoke  with  contemptuous  oaths  of 

the  "  Yankees ;"  if  from  the  North,  they  out- 

heroded  Herod  in  their  abuse  of  "  abolitionists," 

and  knew  no  service  too  menial  to  render  to 

the  "  o-entlemen  of  the  South." 

o 

There  were  a  few  who  saved  politics  from 
utter  degradation ;  men  who  in  the  midst  of 
their  business  had  studied  the  theory  of  our 
government^  and  were  statesmen  undeveloped 
to  the  public ;  others,  also,  wlio  had  been  in- 
trusted with  power  and  position  at  home,  but 
either  because  their  influence  waned,  or  hoping 
to  rise  faster  in  a  new  State,  brou£cht  their 
talent  and  their  experience  to  this  market. 

The  Democratic  party  introduced  California 
to  the  circle  of  territories,  but  the  Whio-s  were 
in  power  when  she  was  admitted  as  a  State,  and 
had  they  managed  with  shrewdness,  they  might 
have  taken  the  cream  of  that  advantage.  They 
lacked  sagacity  in  the  selection  of  agents  to 
represent  them.  They  lost  the  favor  of  the  mi- 
ners by  advising  the  sale  of  the  mineral  lands 
which  the  cosmopolitan  crowd  claimed  to  be- 
long, without  distinction  of  color,  or  nation,  or 


POLITICAL    BLUNDEKS.  341 

lano-uasre,  or  reliorion,  to  those  wlio  would  work  guar 

O         &     7  O  7  XXIV. 

them.  -^~r— 

Then  the  calculations  of  those  who  made  the  i849- 
question  of  slavery  paramount  were  all  frustra- 
ted. The  very  method  of  the  settlement  of  the 
country'  was  a  nail  in  the  skull  of  slavery.  The 
expectation  of  the  war  party  had  been  that  the 
climate  '^  would  draw  to  it  mostly  a  Southern 
population."  Probably  that  would  have  proved 
true  but  for  the  sudden  violence  with  which 
the  gold  fever  burst  upon  the  States.  Many 
early  immigrants  from  the  South  brought  their 
slaves  with  them.  But  if  the  penalty  of  death 
would  not  deter  soldiers  from  deserting  from 
camps,  where  there  was  nothing  to  do,  to  the 
mines— if  wages  treble  any  ever  offered  to  sail- 
ors before  would  not  keep  Jack  on  board  ship 
when  sailing  in  any  direction  was  homeward, 
it  ^vas  certainly  no  wonder  that  the  most  tmsty 
slave  dcseited  his  master,  in  a  land  where  a  few 
weeks'  work  made  all  men  equal,  and  where 
there  was  every  shade  of  color  to  mollify  the 
prejudice  that  it  excites.  Li  every  laborer  the 
fugitive  found  a  friend ;  for  the  freeman  feels 
degraded  to  have  a  slave  labor  by  his  side. 
So  the  fugitive  never  came  back,  and  most  of 
the  slave  ventures  into  California  were  perfect 
failures. 

Very  soon  it  was  obvious  that  men  of  Noith- 
ern  and  Western  birth  outnumbered  the  South- 


342  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CKAP.  erners.     Now  it  happened,  as  we  Lave  shown, 
;;_^_^  that  Southern  notions  concerning  labor  were 
1849-  eai'ly   unpopular.      Still    the   old   Democratic 
^  '^^'    party  training  had  been  very  thorough,  which 
treated  every  thing  of  Southern  origin  as  almost 
sacred.     So  here,  as  elsewhere,  the  South  blus- 
tered and  assumed  every  thing,  while  the  North 
and  the  West  succumbed,  partly  from  habit, 
and  partly  because  they  had  not  come  on  a 
political  errand,  and  did  not  expect  to  stay. 

A  curious  anomaly  was  the  result.  The 
State  with  a  marvellous  unanimity  declared 
against  the  chosen  and  peculiar  institution  of 
the  South ;  yet  Southern  men  bullied  and  ruled 
the  community  in  every  other  respect,  at  their 
sovereign  will. 

Some  strong  conservative  influences,  some 
powerful  elements  of  improvement,  were  at 
work  in  this  motley  mass.  The  accumulation 
of  property  by  a  man  of  any  character  made 
him  a  better  friend  of  law  and  order ;  for  prop- 
erty is  always  a  stringent  conservator.  The 
newspapers,  not  so  much  by  any  bold  denun- 
ciation of  wrong  as  by  simply  exposing  it,  were 
doing  a  good  work.  They  ventilated  crime, 
and  that  is  often  enough  to  check  its  gi'owth, 
which  craves  darkness  and  secrecy.  Then  tliere 
were  eccentric  men  who  made  the  circuit  of  the 
mining  camps,  preaching  in  quaint,  unstudied 
language,  summoning   men   to   repentance   at 


CONSERVATIVE   ESTFLUENCES.  343 

the  risk  of  all  abuse  and  insult.  In  the  cities  chap. 
tliey  gathered  their  meetings  on  the  plazas,  or 
at  the  doors  of  the  most  thronged  gambling- 
saloons,  whose  inmates,  very  likely  in  a  fit  of 
sudden  respect  for  religion,  would  pass  around 
the  hat  for  the  preacher's  benefit.  These  ear- 
nest, humor-loving,  quick-witted  street-preach- 
ers consorted  well  with  the  earnest,  excited, 
rollicking  times,  and  they  did  more  good  than 
at  fii'st  might  be  suj^posed.  Their  exhortations, 
heard  by  fragments  amid  the  oaths  and  the  din 
of  the  gambling-table,  may  have  summoned 
many  a  conscience,  that  seemed  dead,  to  life 
again. 

But  of  less  doubtful  power,  of  a  force  to 
which  society  soon  responded  unmistakably, 
was  the  influence  of  the  undemonstrative  Chris- 
tian men  sprinkled  through  the  mass  of  immi- 
grants— men  who  never  lost  the  memory  of 
home,  who  cherished  the  early  truths  that  in- 
spired their  fathers,  who  were  true  to  early 
vows,  and  faithful  to  their  religion.  Such, 
among  the  distant  foot-hills,  in  the  wildest  set- 
tlements, and  in  all  the  cities,  gathered  the  scat- 
tered children  into  Sabbath-schools,  and  formed 
the  nuclei  of  religious  associations  that  have 
since  built  churches,  started  good  schools,  res- 
cued the  Sabbath,  and  given  to  society  its 
wholesome,  healthful  tone. 

Good  men,  who  felt  at   all   at   home  here, 


344  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFOKNIA. 

oiiAP.  regarded  the  magnificent  proportions  of  the 
^^  '  State  witli  pride.  It  enjoyed  a  far  ^vider  range 
1849-  of  climate  than  its  l)oundiug  parallels  of  lati- 
^^°^'  tude  would  suggest ;  yet  few  places  on  the  globe 
are  favored  with  so  equable  a  temperature  the 
year  through  as  its  commercial  and  popular 
capital.  The  mines  clearly  were  to  be  the 
State's  first  source  of  wealth ;  if  they  held  out 
as  they  promised,  they  could  not  fail  to  attract 
a  vast  emigration.  The  few  experiments  upon 
its  soil  showed  that  at  an  early  future  day 
there  would  be  no  need  of  importing  supplies 
of  food  to  feed  all  that  would  come.  As  popu- 
lation increased,  wages  must  diminish,  and  then 
no  condition  would  be  lacking  to  encourage 
manufactures  and  the  arts. 

Then  the  grand  j)osition  !  Seated  by  the 
sea,  midway  between  Europe  and  Asia,  on  the 
road  that  Atlantic  sails  most  naturally  take 
to  reach  China  or  Japan,  with  a  harbor  not 
surpassed  on  the  globe,  and  that  without  any 
considerable  rival  on  the  coast  throusi^-h  a 
stretch  of  latitude  greater  than  from  Newfound- 
land to  Cuba ;  midway  between  the  climates 
which  it  enjoyed  so  mixed,  that  apples  and  figs, 
wheat  and  olives  ripened  side  by  side,  and 
summer  and  winter  require  a  little  difference  of 
clothing ;  midway  between  "  the  peoples,"  who, 
meeting  here,  made  the  metropolis  cosmopoli- 
tan, and-  in  the  same  mining-camp  conferred  in 


THE   GEAND   POSITION.  345 

half-a-dozen  languages ;  midway  of  the  marts  chap. 
and  harvest-fields  of  the  world,  it  required  no 
enthusiasm  to  make  the  dullest  inquirer  of  her  i849- 
destiny  anticipate  a  wonderful  futui'e  for  Cali- 
fornia, 


346  THE    lUSTOKY   OF    CALIFOEJ^IA. 


CHAPTER  XXV. 

AFTER    THE   ADMISSION. 

CHAP.  It  is  next  proposed  to  sketch  tlie  growtli  of 
^-^^l  the  State  from  the  date  of  its  admission  (1850), 
1850-  imtil  a  great  uj)rising  of  the  people,  constituting 
a  thorough  radical  reformation  of  politics  and 
morals,  once  more  arrested  general  attention, 
and  set  older  communities  to  speculating  upon 
the  future  of  California  —  in  short,  until  the 
Vigilance  rule  in  San  Francisco,  of  1856. 

As  a  whole,  during  these  six  years,  the  course 
of  the  people  was  upward :  the  State  grew  in 
population,  in  wealth,  in  improvements.  But 
in  one  respect  there  was  no  visible  growth. 
Justice  fell  into  bad  company.  Shameless  men 
managed  public  affairs,  especially  in  the  cities, 
and  society  did  not  keep  pace  with  commerce 
and  mining.  Or  rather,  the  conservative  ele- 
ment was  so  overlaid  that  it  was  hidden ;  yet 
it  was  growing  all  the  while,  and  when  the 
burden  became  too  heavy  to  be  borne,  it  eman- 
cipated itself. 

The  mines  did  not  give  out.  The  croakers 
had  said  they  would — had  prophesied  that  in 


1856. 


THE   YIELD    OF   THE   MINES.  34T 

five  years  tlaey  would  be  exhausted,  and  then  chap. 
the  popuhition  would  vanish  as  it  had  come.  ._^^_ 
Sir  Roderick  Murchison,  in  September,  1850,  isoo- 
endeavored,  in  an  article  in  the  Quarterly 
Heview^  to  show  that  in  all  probability  the 
gold  washings  of  California  would  soon  be  ex- 
hausted at  the  rapid  rate  they  were  being 
worked,  and  he  laid  down  the  proposition  that 
no  gold-bearing  veins  in  the  solid  rock  could 
be  wrought  with  profit.  Fortunately  for  his  fame, 
that  distinguished  geologist  did  not  make  very 
definite  his  prediction.  The  placers  yielded 
more  abundantly  in  1851  and  1852  than  they 
did  in  1850. 

The  entire  gold-yield,  from  1848  to  1856  in- 
clusive, has  been  variously  estimated  at  from 
four  hundred  and  fifty  to  six  hundred  millions 
of  dollars.  Hittell,  who  thinks  the  lower  esti- 
mate the  more  nearly  correct,  distributes  the 
yield  among  these  years  as  follows : — 

In  1848,  ten  millions  of  dollars  ;  in  1849, 
forty  millions;  in  1850,  fifty  millions;  in  1851, 
fifty-five  millions;  in  1852,  sixty  millions;  in 
1853,  sixty-five  millions;  in  1854,  sixty  millions ; 
in  1855,  fifty-five  millions;  in  1856,  fifty-five 
millions.  The  same  author  holds  that  in  1850 
there  were  fifty  thousand  miners  at  work ;  if  so, 
each  could  have  averaged  but  one  thousand  dol- 
lars for  that  year — which,  considering  the  cost 
of  living  and  of  travel,  was  scarcely  the  fortune 


348  THE   HISTORY    OF   CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  that  the  eager  emigrant  bargained  for  when  he 

, ■   left  Lis  home. 

1850-  At  first,  the  gold  was  mostly  taken  from  the 
bars  of  the  rivers,  which  constituted  the  "  wet 
diggings,"  or  the  ravines  which  were  known 
as  "  dry  diggings."  But  in  summer,  many  of 
the  rivers  shrank  to  mere  threads,  and  by  de- 
grees the  gold  was  traced  far  away  from  their 
banks.  Yet  water  was  essential  in  the  process 
of  separating  the  metal  from  the  dirt,  and  either 
the  auriferous  soil  and  gravel  must  be  brought 
to  the  river,  or  the  river  brought  to  them.  The 
enterprising  miners  thought  the  latter  the 
cheaper  plan,  so  many  a  river  was  turned  out 
of  its  bed,  and  conveyed  in  canals  to  the  spot 
where  it  was  wanted.  High  up  on  the  mountain- 
sides dams  were  built,  and  the  waters,  as  they 
gushed  from  the  springs,  imprisoned  in  reservoirs. 
Thence  they  were  led  by  gentle  declivities  across 
the  slopes  of  the  foot-hills,  over  deep  ravines  and 
river-beds,  in  flumes  sustained  on  trestle-work 
bridges.  They  were  distributed  by  branching 
ditches  in  all  directions,  and  afforded  «,t  a  fixed 
price  for  the  inch  in  an  abundant  supply  to  the 
miners;  thus  annihilating  the  distinction  be- 
tween wet  and  dry  diggings,  and  substituting 
for  the  cradle  and  rocker  the  "  long  torn,"  and 
for  that,  in  turn,  the  sluice-box.  These  canals, 
and  the  long  skeleton  bridges  supporting  their 
aqueducts  at  immense  heights,  added  a  new  and 


IMPEOVEMENT   IN   MINING   PKOCESSES.  349 

curious  feature  to  the  landscape,  and  gave  an  chap. 
impression  of  imi^rovement  not  justified  by  the  ._^_ 
wildness   everywhere    discernible  on   a  closer  »1850- 
look.     Nor  was  the  amazement  of  the  traveller 
abated  when  he  learned  that  these  costly  enter- 
prises, valued,  at  the  close  of  185(3,  at  eleven 
millions  of  dollars,  were  built  with  the  miners' 
own   money,   and   almost   exclusively  without 
the  employment  of  foreign  capital. 

The  general  extension  of  the  system  of  water 
ditches  made  way  for  another  improvement. 
In  1852,  Edward  E.  Mattison,  of  Nevada  Coun- 
ty, and  formerly  of  Connecticut,  revolutionized 
the  whole  business,  and  restored  great  value  to 
many  an  abandoned  field  by  introducing  the 
hydraulic  hose.  This  was  the  application  of 
a  stream  of  water  conveyed  from  a  height 
through  strong  pipes  and  a  flexible  hose,  and 
directed  upon  the  face  of  hills  in  which  the  gold 
was  scattered  in  minute  particles.  Before  this 
hydraulic  force,  large  hills  were  entirely  broken 
down  and  the  lighter  debris  washed  away 
through 'sluice-boxes,  where  riffles  detained  and 
quicksilver  caught  the  ]3recious  metal. 

It  was  early  discovered  that  in  a  certain 
white  quartz,  very  abundant  in  Tuolumne  and 
Mariposa  counties,  especially  on  the  tract 
bought  by  Fremont  from  Alvarado,  in  1846, 
there  w^as  gold  plainly  visible  to  the  naked  eye. 
The  placer  miners  looked  covetously    on   the 


350  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  sparkling  points  or  seams,  but   generally  pro- 
,_^__^  nounced  it  too  tiglitly  locked  in  its  stony  safes 
1851.    to  be  come  at  with  profit.     Capital  made  the 
attempt,  however. 

In  1851  the  first  quartz-crushing  mill  was 
erected;  others  quickly  followed,  the  stamps 
being  worked  in  some  cases  by  horse-power,  in 
some  by  water,  and  in  others  by  steam.  Soon 
there  was  a  rage,  especially  among  foreigners, 
for  quartz.  Many  Englishmen  bought  up  gold- 
bearing  quartz  veins  by  the  map,  sent  out  costly 
machinery,  gave  theorizing  superintendents  ex- 
orbitant salaries,  paid  enormous  travelling  fees, 
lavished  their  money,  and  looked  for  returns 
that  would  startle  the  world.  Sometimes  their 
agents  on  arriving  could  not  find  the  purchased 
veins ;  sometimes  the  veins  were  all  right,  but 
no  water  was  to  be  had ;  sometimes,  where  all 
the  other  conditions  were  satisfactory,  the  agents 
failed  in  practical  exj)erience  to  make  unques- 
tionably rich  mines  pay.  Most  of  the  machin- 
ery was  found  useless  for  the  purposes  intended. 
Operations  had  been  commenced  when  freights 
and  the  prices  of  provisions,  materials,  and 
labor  were  very  high.  Full  two  millions  of 
English  capital,  and  not  a  little  American,  was 
squandered,  and  then  quartz-crushing  at  a  profit 
was  pronounced  impracticable,  and  was  gener- 
ally abandoned.  Two  or  three  years  later  that 
business  revived  again.     In  1855  the  quartz  on 


EXTENT    OF   JUNINQ   IMPEOVEMENTS.  351 

Alison's  ranch,  near  Grass  Valley,  wliicli  had  chap. 
long  been  known  as  very  rich,  was  carefully  ,_^_1, 
tested.  The  result  brought  quartz-crushing  again  i856. 
into  favor,  started  the  idle  mills,  and  caused 
others  with  improved  machinery  to  be  erected. 
By  the  end  of  1856  there  were  one  hundred 
and  thirty-eight  quartz-mills  in  the  State,  valued 
at  one  million  seven  hundred  and  sixty-three 
thousand  dollars,  of  which  forty-eight  were 
driven  by  steam.  There  were  innumerable 
shafts  and  adits  and  tunnels  which  some- 
times pierced  quite  through  the  hills.  The  hy- 
draulic hose  had  washed  down  immense  hills, 
and  sadly  marred  the  natural  beauty  of  the 
mining  region.  There  were  more  than  forty- 
four  hundred  miles  of  artificial  watercourses 
widening  the  area  of  the  miners'  operations,  and 
though  the  number  of  miners  had  not  increased, 
and  more  and  more  of  the  gold  was  detained  in 
California,  her  annual  export  of  treasure  was 
maintained  without  much  variation,  from  1851 
to  1856  inclusive,  at  about  fifty  millions  of  dol- 
lars. 

But  although  the  mines  were  the  strong 
magnet  that  drew  immigration,  they  did  not  fur- 
nish the  principal  occupation  of  those  who  ar- 
rived. The  early  immigrants  generally  tried 
them  long  enough  to  learn  that  digging  gold 
was  after  all  quite  as  hard  work  as  digging 
potatoes.     The  unrestrained   liberty   of  camp- 


352  THE   HISTOEY    OF    CALITOENIA. 

CHAP,  life  soon  parted  witli  its  first  flue  flavor,  there 
was  so  mucli  drudgery  mixed  "svitli  it.     Its  ex- 

1850-  citements  early  lost  their  charm,  and  the  calmer 
"*  ■  sort  pined  for  a  steadier  kind  of  employment. 
Every  mining  camp  made  a  market  for  vegeta- 
bles, and  the  cost  of  transporting  them  tempted 
those  who  knew  the  art  to  "tickle  the  earth" 
with  hoe  and  spade,  and  see  if  she  would 
"  laugh  with  harvests  "  of  root  crops.  The  great 
valleys  were  already  famous  for  their  yield  of 
grains ;  but  the  Ameiicans  had  been  here  for 
three  or  four  years  before  it  was  generally  con- 
ceded that  there  were  over  a  few  hundred  acres 
of  "  vegetable  land"  in  the  State.  Experiment 
settled  the  question  satisfactorily,  and  then 
agriculture  soon  populated  the  fertile  nooks 
near  the  mines,  planted  the  sheltered  slopes  of 
the  foot-hills  with  gardens  and  orchards,  and 
brought  into  cultivation  the  great  valleys. 
Money  was  made  more  easily,  fortunes  were 
built  up  more  surely,  and  scarcely  less  rapidly, 
by  catering  to  the  wants  of  settlers  than  by 
hunting  for  gold. 

The  census  of  1852  reported  the  wheat  crop 
of  the  State  at  two  hundred  and  seventy-one 
thousand  seven  hundred  and  sixty -three  bushels. 
The  crop  of  1856  was  nearly  thirteen  times  as 
great. 

The  potato  crop  of  1852  was  quite  equal  to 
the  demand,  the  average  price  being  one  and  a 


ADVAIS^CE    OF   AGRICULTURE.  353 

half  dollars  per  busliel.  But  in  the  supply  and  chap. 
prices  of  farm  produce  and  garden  truck,  there  iS\_j 
continued  great  fluctuations.  The  onion-fields  i850- 
of  1851  and  1852  made  their  owners  rich  ;  the  '^''' 
same  fields  in  1853  and  1854,  with  excellent 
crops,  ruined  their  owners.  The  average  price 
of  two  hundred  pounds  of  wheat  flour  at  San 
Francisco  was,  in  January,  1851,  sixteen  dol- 
lars; of  1852,  eleven  dollars;  of  1853,  twenty- 
six  dollars ;  of  1854,  ten  and  a  quarter  dollars  ; 
of  1855,  nine  dollars ;  of  1856,  eight  dollars 
and  sixty-two  cents.  Attention  was  early  at- 
tracted to  the  facilities  of  the  southern  and  cen- 
tral parts  of  the  State  for  producing  wine.  The 
census  of  1850  reported  fifty-eight  thousand 
and  fifty-five  gallons  of  wine  made  in  California, 
and  no  other  State  in  the  Union  made  as  much. 
The  number  of  vines  was  quadrupled  in  1856. 
The  land  available  for  cultivation,  aside  from 
swamp  and  overflowed  regions,  was  estimated  at 
forty-one  and  a  half  millions  of  acres.  Of  these, 
one  in  every  three  hundred  and  seventy-six  was 
under  cultivation  in  1852 ;  and  one  in  every 
seventy  in  1856.  Of  animal  food,  from  the  be- 
ginning there  was  plenty ;  but  as  late  as  1856 
none  of  the  great  staple,  cereal,  or  root  crops 
were  equal  to  the  demand ;  yet  the  conclusion 
had  been  reached  by  intelligent  observers  that 
California,  considering  her  limited  amount  of 
arable  land,  was  without  a  rival  in  her  capacity 

23 


354  THE    HISTORY    OF    CALIFOEIHA. 

CHAP,  of  grain  production — that  she  produced  wheat 

,_^_,  and  the  other  small  grains  "  in  larger  quanti- 

1850-  ties  to  the  acre,  of  better  quality,  with  more 

^'   certainty  and  less  labor,  than  any  other  country 

in  the  known  world." 

The  high  prices  of  labor  kept  back  manufac- 
tures, and  only  those  were  developed  which 
populous  new  lands  summon  into  existence. 
The  saw-mill,  herald  and  pioneer  of  most  set- 
tlements, lagged  behind  population  here.  In 
1856  there  were  three  hundred  and  seventy- 
three  of  them  in  the  State,  erected  at  a  cost  of 
two  and  a  half  millions  of  dollars,  cutting  into 
lumber  the  exliaustless  forests  of  the  coast 
range  and  SieiTa  Nevada.  There  were  one 
hundred  and  thirty-one  grist-mills,  fourteen  iron 
foundries,  and  eighteen  tanneries.  Ship-build- 
ing was  as  yet  in  its  infancy. 

Commerce  reaped  a  splendid  harvest  from 
California  during  this  period.  Almost  eveiy 
thing  eaten  or  worn  here  was  imported  until 
1851.  In  1852  the  vessels  arriving  at  and  de- 
parting from  San  Francisco  averaged  more  than 
seven  a  day.  In  1853  the  imports  of  San  Fran- 
cisco were  valued  at  thirty-five  millions  of  dol- 
lars. The  flour  and  meal  bill  of  this  importing 
people  was  five  millions  of  dollars ;  its  butter 
bill  four  millions,  and  its  lumber  bill  the  same. 
Its  exports  were  a  few  hides  and  over  fifty-seven 
million  dollars  worth  of  gold.      The  vessels  ar- 


C05I5IEROE   OF   SAN   FRANCISCO.  355 

riving  and  departing  that  year  registered  one  chap. 
raillion  one  hundred  and  sixty-seven  thousand  '  ' 
four  hundred  and  thirty-three  tons — greater  isoo- 
than  the  tonnage  of  Boston  three  years  later.        ^^^^' 

Indeed,  commerce  overdid  itself  that  year. 
It  was  considerably  less  in  1854 ;  still  less  in 
1855 ;  and  less  yet  in  1856 ;  and  still  San 
Francisco,  at  the  last  date  named,  was  fourth 
in  the  list  of  American  cities  for  its  tonnage. 
New  York,  Boston,  and  New^  Orleans  only  ex- 
ceeded it ;  Philadelphia  could  not  claim  half  its 
amount.  It  must  be  remembered,  liowever, 
that  this  vast  fleet  was  not,  nor  any  consider- 
able portion  of  it,  owned  here. 

The  Bay  of  San  Francisco  was  lively  in  those 
days.  Long  wharves  thrust  themselves  over 
the  flats  towards  deep  water.  Their  construc- 
tion had  cost  a  million  and  a  half  of  dollars  as 
early  as  1850,  and  fair  facilities  w^ere  furnished 
for  tolerably  quick  dispatch — the  great  lack 
being  fire-proof  store-houses.  Vessels  propelled 
by  steam  ploughed  the  bay  and  rivers,  and 
plied  up  and  down  the  coast.  Fortnightly 
steamers  arrived  and  left  in  1853,  carrying  the 
mails  and  bringing  crowds  of  passengers  and 
such  freight  as  could  afford  to  pay  the  high 
transportation  charges  of  the  Isthmus. 

A  passion  possessed  the  merchants  of  the 
Eastern  cities  to  take  California  ventures.  Car- 
goes were  bought  up  and  sent  out  to  be  sold 


356  THE   HISTORY    OF   CALIFOElSriA. 

CHAP,  on  commission  so  quietly  tLat  none  but  tlie 
,_^_,  sharpest  could  keep  posted  on  trade  movements. 
1850-  Bostonians,  New  Yorkers,  PliiladelpLiana 
'^'"'  would  not  be  convinced  that  the  high  prices  of 
1849  and  1850  might  not  suddenly  rage  again 
on  a  day's  notice,  and  they  poured  in  their 
miscellaneous  assortments  in  spite  of  the  pro- 
tests of  correspondents.  Money  was  plenty, 
but  goods  were  plentier.  Almost  every  thing 
was  sold  on  commission  or  at  auction,  for  rents 
were  too  high  to  permit  unmarketable  articles  to 
be  stored  long.  Soon  it  was  clear  that  the 
race  was  to  the  swift.  If  an  article  was  grow- 
ing scarce,  the  first  ship  that  could  get  around 
the  Horn  with  it  won  the  market.  So,  fleet 
clippers  came  into  fashion,  and  it  was  held  sim- 
ple madness  to  freight  a  slow  sailer. 

Throughout  the  great  part  of  1852  high 
prices  ruled  for  the  necessaries  of  life.  Flour, 
from  eight  dollars  a  barrel  in  March,  ran  up 
to  forty  dollars  a  barrel  in  November.  Storms 
kept  the  clippers  back.  Of  some  things  the 
supply  was  quite  exhausted,  and  the  shifts  to 
which  people  were  put,  were  very  amusing  to 
disinterested  observers.  The  Alta  newspaper,  in 
July,  suddenly  came  down  from  a  broad,  hand- 
some sheet  to  a  small  folio,  with  a  page  fourteen 
by  ten  inches  in  dimensions.  The  Herald  was 
forced  to  use  brown  wrapping-paper  for  its 
issues. 


POPULATIOlSr    OF   THE   STATE.  357 

This   occasional  barrenness  of  markets  did  chap. 

XXV 

something  towards  stimulating  home  manufac-  ^1^^ 
tures ;  but  not  much,  on  account  of  the  rates    isso- 
of  wages,  and  the  fact  that  money  commanded 
so  high  an  iuterest. 

The  population  of  California  was  estimated 
in  1831  at  little  over  twenty-three  thousand; 
in  January  of  1849,  at  thirty-six  thousand,  of 
whom  thirteen  thousand  were  natives,  eight 
thousand  from  the  United  States,  and  five 
thousand  from  other  foreign  countries.  The 
national  census  of  1850  reported  one  hundred 
and  seventeen  thousand  five  hundred  and  thirty- 
ei2:ht  inhabitants  in  the  new  State.  In  1851, 
twenty-seven  thousand  people  arrived  by  sea, 
and  more  than  half  of  them  by  way  of  the  Isth- 
mus or  the  Nicaragua  route  ;  yet  the  steamers 
caiTied  back  more  than  they  brought.  If  the 
State  grew,  it  was  chiefly  1  )y  means  of  the  large 
overlcud  emigration.  In  1852,  the  State  census 
showed  a  population  of  two  hundred  and  sixty- 
four  thousand,  four  hundred  and  thirty -five. 
Immigration  was  double  that  of  the  preceding 
year ;  about  one-third  the  number  that  arrived 
departed.  Fewer  were  "  going  home  "  to  stay. 
In  1853  there  arrived  fifteen  thousand  by  land, 
and  thirty-four  thousand  by  sea.  The  depart- 
ures were,  exclusively  by  sea,  thirty-one  thou- 
sand. This  was  pushing  ahead — a  gain  from 
abroad  of  eighteen  thousand.     It  was  estimated 


.358  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA, 

CKA.V.  that  but  one-fifth  the  whole  population  were 
^__^  women,  and  but  one-tenth  children.  By  the 
1850-  close  of  1856  the  State  contained,  by  estimate, 
■    over  half  a  million  inhabitants. 

Though  the  Indians  were  left  out  in  the  usual 
busine*ss  calculations  of  the  people,  they  played 
no  inconsiderable  part  in  the  country  during 
this  period.  They  made  some  trouble,  required 
much  legislation,  and  were  the  innocent  means 
of  pumping  much  money  out  of  the  General 
Government. 

After  the  spell  of  the  Fathers  was  dissolved, 
many  of  the  tame  ones  relapsed  into  heathen- 
ism, carrying  back  with  them  a  more  positive, 
laziness  than  their  ancestors  possessed,  and  a 
surer  instinct  for  thieving.  They  shrunk  into 
retirement  during  the  conquest,  and  were  seldom 
thought  of.  Domesticated  representatives  of 
their  race  were  housed  among  the  pioneers,  and 
gangs  of  them,  for  wages,  hunted  for  gold. 

The  Legislature,  at  its  first  session,  compli- 
mented them  with  an  act.  It  had  no  trace  of 
an  admission  of  their  title  to  the  land.  Their 
villages  must  not  be  disturbed,  but  their  rights 
were  only  those  of  a  tenant.  Minor  Indians, 
with  the  permission  of  their  parents,  might  be 
adopted  by  the  whites.  If  the  Indians  were 
abused,  they  could  complain  to  the  justice  of 
the  peace,  but  no  white  person  on  their  testi- 
mony could  be  convicted.     Thejustice  must  tell 


INDIAN    WAKS.  359 

them  what  the  law  was,  and,  if  they  violated  chap. 
it,  must  punish  their  head  men  by  reprimand,  ^^,,__^ 
fine,  or  reasonable  chastisement.  For  stealing  1850. 
they  incurred  a  fine  of  two  hundred  dollars,  or 
"twenty-five  lashes  laid  on  without  cruelty." 
Able-bodied  Indians  found  begging,  strolling, 
or  loitering  about  places  where  li(]^uor  was  to 
be  sold,  could  be  hired  out  for  four  months  to 
the  highest  bidder.  To  sell  them  liquor  in- 
curred a  fine  of  twenty  dollars,  or  five  days' 
imprisonment.  The  money  that  was  paid  as 
fines  by  Indians,  or  by  whites  on  Indian  ac- 
count, and  the  wages  earned  while  hired  out  on 
account  of  vagrancy,  was  to  go  to  a  mythical 
"  Indian  fund  "  of  the  town.  So  it  will  be  seen 
that  the  Indian  was  treated  with  a  kind  of  con- 
sideration, and  as  possessed  of  rights  that  white 
men  were  bound  to  respect — white  men  being 
judges.  Considering  the  state  of  the  typograph- 
ical art  of  that  day,  it  is  not  at  all  significant 
that  the  compiled  statutes  of  the  first  three 
years  of  California  legislation  scrupulously 
spelled  the  word  Indian  with  a  little  i. 

Before  the  Americans  came,  there  was 
scarcely  such  a  thing  known  in  California  as  an 
Indian  war.  Occasionally,  when  game  and  fish, 
grasshoppers,  acorns  and  pine-nuts  were  scarce, 
the  hungry  Diggers  would  swoop  down  upon 
the  ranches  of  the  tame  Indians,  and  make  off 
with  their  cattle,  which  led  to  arms  and  a  himt. 


360  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFOETs'IA. 

CHAP.  But  with  the  admission  into  the  Union,  the  In- 
dians assumed  the  condition  which  appears  to 

1850.    be  normal  for  them  in  all  new  frontier  States — 
that  is,  of  frequent  hostility. 

Some  Americans  attempting  in  1849  to  pene- 
trate the  country  to  the  head  of  the  rivers,  were 
killed  by  them.  They  drove  back  a  party  of 
explorers  from  the  Trinity  River  region,  and  at- 
tacked parties  going  to  and  from  Oregon.  In 
1850,  there  were  hostile  movements  in  Mari- 
posa and  Fresno  Counties,  and  some  thefts  and 
murders  committed.  Not  that  the  Indians  had 
combined,  but,  as  Governor  Burnett  stated  it, 
being  impelled  by  the  same  causes,  they  were 
without  combination  placed  in  an  attitude  of 
hostility.  They  saw  the  lands,  for  which  the 
General  Government  showed  no  haste  to  treat, 
passing  out  of  their  possession ;  a  people  that 
had  no  sympathy  for  them  crowding  into  their 
choice  places ;  diseases  thinning  their  tribes : 
they  accepted  the  notion  that  they  were  a 
doomed  race.  Discouraged  and  moody,  they 
failed  to  provide  for  their  wants,  and  that  fail- 
ure in  the  presence  of  the  whites  was  far  more 
serious  than  while  they  had  the  range  of  the 
woods,  the  valleys,  the  bays,  and  the  rivers.  A 
prospect  of  starvation  followed,  and  to  avert  it 
came  thefts  from  the  settlers.  The  whites  were 
not  slow  to  punish  the  thieves,  nor  the  Indiana 
to  avenjie  their  wronirs  with  murder.     Volun- 


INDIAN   WARS.  361 

teer  companies  organized  expeditions  to  quell  chap. 
the  disturbance ;  they  failing,  the  militia  were  _^ 
called  out,  and  then  there  was  a  pretty  bill  of    1850. 
expenses   on   "  Indian   war   account."      Twice 
during  1850  the  Governor  authorized  expedi- 
tions at  the  State's  expense,  because  of  formi- 
dable attacks  at  points  where  the  emigrant  trains 
entered  the  State. 

At  the  confluence  of  the  Gila  and  Colorado, 
the  savages  on  the  23d  of  April  surprised  and 
murdered  a  Mr.  Glauton  and  eleven  other  men, 
who  had  established  a  ferry  across  the  Colo- 
rado. The  southern  counties,  though  called  on, 
manifested  no  great  desu'e  to  form  an  expedition 
to  the  scene  of  slaughter.  General  Morehead 
raised  a  party  of  seventy-five  men,  conducted 
them  to  the  southeast  corner  of  the  State,  wait- 
ed a  month,  and  then,  by  order  of  the  Governor, 
disbanded  it,  as  there  were  no  evidences  of  its 
beinsf  needed  lons-er. 

William  Rogers  was  authorized  by  the  Ex- 
ecutive, in  October,  to  arm  two  hundred  men, 
and  proceed  along  the  trail  that  leads  from 
Salt  Lake  into  El  Dorado  County,  where  the  In- 
dians had  killed  several  miners,  and  rol)bed  and 
wounded  a  number  of  emigrants.  The  expedi- 
tion went  out,  did  some  skirmishing,  lost  three 
men,  killed  sixteen  of  the  Indians,  and  so  re- 
stored peace. 

There  were  repeated  troubles,  too,  in  Mari- 


362  THE    IIISTOEY    OF    CALIFOllNIA. 

CHAP.  ])osa  and  Fresno  Counties,  near  the  head  of  the 
"  _,  San  Joaquin.      Miners   were   murdered,   their 

1850-  cattle,  stock,  and  movables  carried  off,  their 
cabins  burned.  Sheriff  Burney  raised  a  com- 
pany of  seventy-four  volunteers,  pursued  the  in- 
surgents, overtook  them,  killed  forty  or  fifty  of 
their  number,  and  burned  their  village,  losing 
eight  of  his  ov/n  party. 

Indeed,  along  the  whole  eight  hundred  miles 
of  wild  mountainous  frontier,  there  was  a  fever- 
ish expectation  of  trouble  kept  up  by  rumors, 
not  always  false,  of  Indian  depredations.  When, 
by  the  resignation  of  Governor  Burnett,  John 
McDougall  became  chief  Executive  in  January 
of  1851,  he  took  an  early  occasion  to  inform  the 
Senate  "  of  the  actual  existence  of  an  Indian 
war  within  our  borders." 

In  the  spring  of  1852,  J.   W.   Denver,  and 

1852.  other  members  of  the  Legislature,  represented 
to  the  Executive  that  the  Pitt  River  Indians 
and  other  Northern  tribes  were  constantly  in  a 
state  of  hostility  to  the  whites.  They  reported 
that  in  the  counties  of  Shasta,  Trinity,  Klamath, 
and  Siskiyou,  since  the  winter  of  1849  and 
1850,  two  hundred  and  forty  thousand  dollars 
worth  of  property  had  been  destroyed,  and  one 
hundred  and  thirty  persons  murdered  by  In- 
dians. 

This  memorial  Governor  Bigler  transmitted  to 
the  commander  of  the  Pacific  Department  of  the 


INDIAN    WARS,  363 

United  States  army,  complainino-  that  the  General  cha  p. 

i  o  XXV 

Government  was  not  doing  its  duty  to  the  coast.  ^_^_ 
General  Hitchcock  stated  in  reply  that  few  isso- 
instances  of  late  Indian  depredations  had  come 
to  his  knowledge.  Since  Major  Kearny,  in 
June,  1851,  chastised  the  Rogue  River  Indians, 
he  had  heard  of  no  trouble  until  a  story  was 
published  of  eight  men  killed  on  the  Coquilla. 
He  instantly  sent  out  a  force  which  killed  some 
of  the  alleged  perpetrators  of  the  murders,  dis- 
pelled the  rest,  and  destroyed  their  supplies  of 
fish.  Afterwards  it  appeared  that  the  white 
men,  who  were  reported  murdered,  had  escaped 
alive  into  Oregon,  and  that  the  conflict  arose 
from  their  own  imprudence.  In  December, 
1851,  he  was  informed  of  an  outbreak  in  the 
southern  part  of  the  State.  Major  Heintzel- 
man,  with  a  body  of  troops,  marched  against 
the  Indians,  met,  fought,  beat  them,  secured 
the  immediate  authoi's  of  the  war,  punished 
them,  and  restored  perfect  peace.  He  was 
not  aware  that  troops  were  needed  in  any 
particular  section  of  California,  though  he 
very  well  knew  that  isolated  cases  of  rob- 
bery and  murder  had  occurred.  He  remind- 
ed the  Governor  that  the  country  was  not 
settled  from  the  coast  gradually  towards  the 
interior,  but  every  part  of  it  was  suddenly 
penetrated  and  explored,  bringing  the  two  races 
into  close  proximity  over  the  ^vhole  area,  and 


3G4  THE   IIISTOKY    OF    CALIFOIllS'IA. 

I  iiAP.  uoi   aloni:'  a  frondb-r  line  alone.     If  there  Lad 
really  been  any  delay  in  sending  troops  to  tlie 

1850-  coast,  it  was  only  because  the  peculiar  tempta- 
•   tions  to  desertion  made  it  almost  impossible  to 
keep  troops  together. 

Bnt  Rydick  McKee,  U.  S.  Indian  Agent  for 
XortLern  California,  used  a  different  tone  in 
addressing:  the  Governor.  He  was  informed, 
he  said,  that  in  February  two  men  were  mur- 
dered, and  their  house  rol:>bed,  on  the  north 
side  of  the  Eel  River,  some  fifteen  or  twenty 
miles  from  Humboldt.  AVhen  the  settlers 
heard  of  it  they  jumped  to  the  conclusion  that 
the  murderers  were  Indians.  They  organized 
a  hunt,  and  shot  down  fifteen  or  twenty  de- 
fenceless natives,  whom  they  had  no  occasion  to 
suspect.  A  week  or  two  later  they  shot  four 
others  on  suspicion.  In  the  same  month  an 
Indian  boy  was  deliberately  shot  by  a  Missou- 
rian,  at  Happy  Camp,  on  the  Klamath.  The 
Indian  friends  of  the  boy  charged  a  certain 
white  man  with  being  concerned  in  the  murder. 
Alarmed  for  his  safety,  the  white  man  collected 
a  party,  who  went  up  to  the  Indian  village, 
shot  all  the  men  and  a  number  of  the  women, 
and  burned  their  houses.  Proceeding  two  miles 
up  the  river  to  Indian  Flat,  they  treated  that 
village  and  its  inhabitants  in  the  same  way,  ex- 
cept that  here  one  man  escaped  to  tell  the  agent 
the  story.     In  all,  between  thirty  and  forty  In- 


INDIAT^    WARS.  365 

dians  were   tlius  coolly  slauirhtered.      He  siib-  chap. 

^  XXV 

mitted  it  to  the  Governor,  whether  some  meas-  _^ 
ures  could  not  be  adopted  to  vindicate  the  1850- 
laws  of  the  country  and  of  humanity,  and  bring 
such  desperadoes  to  punishment.  Governor 
Bigler,  in  reply,  called  attention  to  the  discrep- 
ancies between  the  statement  of  Senator  Den- 
ver and  the  account  of  Mr.  McKee,  some  of' 
whose  reflections  he  thought  "  an  imputation 
on  the  character  of  American  citizens."  "  As  a 
private  intercessor,"  said  the  Governor,  "  be- 
tween American  citizens  and  their  savao;e  ene- 
mies,  consanguinity,  and  the  sentiments  which 
it  inspires,  would  incline  me  to  fixvor  the  cause 
of  my  countrymen  ;  and,  as  a  public  magistrate 
chosen  by  American  citizens,  I  cannot  yield  my 
approbation  to  any  imputations  upon  their  in- 
telligence or  patriotism."  Mr.  McKee  assured 
the  Governor  that  he  fully  concurred  in  his  re- 
marks touching  the  progress  of  civilization — 
"  many  of  them  were  familiar  truisms  very  pret- 
tily expressed" — still,  he  must  remember  that 
if  a  pack-train  were  robbed,  or  a  corral  broken 
open,  the  lirst  red-skins  that  appeared  were 
made  to  pay  the  penalty,  and  he  cited  several 
cases  where  "consanguinity"  had  led  the  whites 
to  punish  Indians  for  outrages  with  which  it 
was  afterwards  clearly  proven  that  none  of  their 
race  had  any  thing  to  do.  A  sharp  letter  from 
the  Governor,  "  with  renewed  assurances,"  and 


366  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP.  SO  fortli,  concluded  this  suggestive  con-espond- 

XXV. 

^_^_  ence. 

1850-  "Indian  Wars"  were  not  popular  in  the 
^^'^^'  cities,  but  tlie}^  were  in  tlie  lobby  of  the  Legis- 
lature, where  the  men  gathered  who  furnished 
supplies  for  expeditious  to  quell  disturbances, 
as  well  as  in  the  wild  regions  where  the  Indians 
occupied  choice  land  that  the  whites  coveted. 

It  was  a  snug  bill  that  was  run  up  on  ac- 
count of  the  i-aids  that  punished  the  Indians, 
and  not  a  whit  the  less  because  it  was  pre- 
sumed that  the  General  Government  would  pay 
it  finally.  The  "War  Debt,"  by  New  Year's 
of  1853,  was  seven  hundred  and  seventy-one 
thousand  one  hundred  and  ninety  dollars ;  after 
that  it  grew  only  by  the  addition  of  interest. 
The  trust  in  the  General  Government's  gener- 
osity was  not  disappoiuted,  for  Congress,  at  the 
session  of  1854,  authorized  the  Secretary  of 
War  to  ascertain  the  amount  expended  l)y  the 
State,  and  appropriated  nine  hundred  and 
twenty-four  thousand  two  hundred  and  fifty- 
nine  dollars  to  pay  it.  There  ^vas  a  hitch 
about  tlie  interest  due  after  the  date  of  adjust- 
ment, and  the  money  was  not  paid  for  some 
time.  The  State  debated  a  good  deal,  wanting 
more  money,  and  legislated  some  in  hopes  to 
get  more;  then  a  commission  was  sent  to  Con- 
gress, but  no  new  action  was  taken  by  thiit 
body,  which  already  had  dealt  very  liberall}- 


THE    INBIAX    EESERVATIOlSrS.  367 

in  the  matter.  From  that  time  onward,  the  chap. 
General  Government  with  its  own  troops  quell-  ^^^^^ 
ed  all  Indian  disturbances,  and  found  but  few    i850- 

,  ,,  185G. 

to  quell. 

Its  early  agents  made  treaties  with  the  In- 
dians, as  if  they  had  a  title  to  the  land,  but  the 
United  States  Senate  rejected  them,  and,  as 
Mexico  and  Spain  had  done,  ignored  the  Indian 
claim.  That,  moreover,  was  the  Government's 
general  policy  with  all  savages  who,  like  those 
of  California,  had  lost  their  tribal  character. 
Soon  it  was  urged  that  their  hunting-grounds 
were  destroyed,  the  rivers  ruined  for  salmon- 
fishing,  by  the  miners,  and  the  forests,  with 
their  store  of  acorns  and  nuts,  cut  down.  It 
was  pleaded  that,  for  humanity's  sake,  they 
should  be  gathered  upon  reservations.  So  mili- 
tary posts  were  established  with  farming  lands 
around  each,  and  the  Government  agents  were 
authorized  to  gather  them  in.  The  Tehon 
Reservation  was  established  in  1853,  in  Los 
Angeles  County;  Nome  Lackee,  in  1854,  in 
Tehama  County;  Klamath,  in  1855;  Mendo- 
cino, in  1856 — each  containing  twenty-five  thou- 
sand acres;  Fresno  and.  King's  River  Farms, 
of  two  thousand  acre-^,  in  1854,  and  Nome 
Cult  Farm,  of  five  thousand  acres,  in  Tehama 
County.  Farming  was  the  chief  employment 
on  all  of  them ;  at  Mendocino,  fishing  also  was 
extensively  practised. 


368  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFOKiaA. 

CHAP.  The  Reservation  system  was  a  costly,  and 
'^^^'  not  veiy  successful  experiment;  to  collect  the 
1850-  Indians  was  not  tlie  easiest  part  of  it.  The 
^^^^-  tame  or  Mission  Indians  still  loitered  in  consid- 
erable numbers  at  the  south,  about  the  sites 
of  the  old  missions.  They  lived  in  families  and 
villages  by  themselves,  and  were  the  willing 
helpers  of  the  whites,  for  small  wages  harvest- 
ing their  crops  and  treading  their  wine-presses. 
Others  en2:ao:ed  as  servants  of  the  native  Cali- 
fornians,  or  hired  out  as  miners,  and  were  wel- 
come help  to  companies  that  had  capital  and 
lacked  laborers.  Then  the  wild  Indians,  who, 
unless  very  hungry,  or  maddened  Iry  the  at- 
temj^ts  of  the  whites  to  steal  their  children, 
were  almost  equally  harmless,  even  if  willing 
to  go  to  the  Reservations  during  the  famine 
months,  pined  for  their  freedom  when  the  for- 
ests and  the  rivers  abounded  with  food,  and 
were  apt  to  take  it.  The  more  restless  and 
bold  sometimes  drifted  as  far  east  as  the  Sierras, 
or  even  beyond,  then  swayed  back  again  to  the 
midst  of  the  settlements.  Perhaps  this  frequent 
shifting  of  location  accounts  in  jjart  for  the  ex- 
traordinary discreiiancies  concerning  their  num- 
bers, which  Colonel  Henley  estimated,  in  1856, 
as  high  as  sixty-one  thousand  six  hundred ;  yet 
not  more  than  ten  thousand  were  gathered  at 
the  Reservations. 

The  Chinese  figured  largely  in  the  politics 


THE   CHrNESE.  369 

of  the  State,  tlionsrli  tliev  had  no  vote,  and  no  chap. 
standing  as  citizens.     Tempted  l)y  gold  out  of  ,1_^ 
their  "  Central  Kingdom,''  whose  records  give    1850- 
them  a  national  and  imperial  existence  contem- 
porary with  the  Prophet  Isaiah,  they  began  to 
arrive,  but  not  very  numerously,  in  1850.     By 
the  spring  of  1852  there  were  ten  thousand  of 
them  (almost  exclusively  males)  in  the  State; 
and  by  the  close  of  that  year,  perhaps  eighteen 
thousand.     Most  of  them  went  to  the  mines ; 
but   there  were  also  laborers,  peddlers,  laun- 
derers,    and   merchants  in   their  number,  who 
stayed  by  the  cities.     A  few  came  as  coolies, 
but  that  system  of  servitude  was  found  unprof- 
itable, and  soon  abandoned. 

At  first  they  were  welcomed  as  a  picturesque 
addition  to  the  peculiarities  of  the  country. 
The  barbaric  feature  they  contributed  was  a 
source  of  pride  to  the  people.  Rich  or  poor, 
they  adhered  to  their  own  costume.  Their  long 
braided  queues,  their  blue  frocks,  red  sashes, 
and  wooden  shoes,  the  jingling  anklets  of  plated 
silver  worn  by  their  females,  the  Americans 
w^ere  proud  to  point  out  to  strangers  as  tokens 
that  the  wealth  of  their  land  was  arousing  even 
the  drowsy  Asiatics.  Besides,  every  Chinaman 
was  a  silent  witness  that  the  Indies  were  just 
to  the  west,  and  that  this  vv^as  the  highway  for 
their  wealth  from  the  East  of  the  ancients  to 
the  true  East  of  the  moderns.     The  cleanliness, 

2t 


370  THE   IIISTOKY    OF    CALIFOKNI.\. 

CfiAP.  politeness,  and  unobtrusive   Gjood  behavior  of 
XXV  .  •  . 

the   Chinese   were   m    every   pioneer's  mouth. 

1850-  The  Chinese  restaui-ants  were  commended  for 
■  their  fresh  and  novel  delicacies,  as  well  as  for 
their  scrupulous  neatness.  But  this  did  not 
last  long.  The  miners  early  took  a  fright. 
These  pagan  strangers  were  happ}'  and  content 
on  three  or  four  dollars  a  month,  and  the  free 
passage  to  and  from  the  country.  Even  such 
small  wages  were  princely,  compared  with  any 
they  had  at  home,  and  the  "  honest  miners  "  of 
European  descent  feared  that  Asia  would  dis- 
gorge such  a  'horde  upon  their  gold-fields  that 
the  original  possessors  would  be  starved  out. 

Governor  Bigler,  who  was  quick  to  take  a 
hint  from  a  controlling  class  of  voters,  sound- 
ed the  alarm  in  a  messao*e  to  the  Le2:islature  of 
1852.  He  submitted  that  measures  must  1)6 
adopted  to  check  the  tide  of  immigration  from 
Asia,  and  keep  away  "  coolies,"  who  intended 
to  take  away  all  they  made.  He  suggested  a 
tax  on  Chinamen,  and  that  Congress  be  memo- 
rialized for  a  law  prohibiting  their  working  in 
the  mines. 

Though  the  Legislature  did  not  respond  to 
the  Governor's  suggestion,  its  effect  was  a  sud- 
den and  almost  entire  cessation  of  immiorration 
and  of  importation  of  goods  from  China.  In 
the  following  year  the  subject  was  again  earl}- 
before   the    Legislature.      The    Committee  ou 


1856. 


THE    CHIITESE.  371 

Mines,  to  which  it  was  referred,  had  an  in-  chap. 
terview  with  leading  Chinese  merchants,  who  ._^_1, 
advised  that  a  tax  be  laid  upon  their  country-  isso- 
men  in  the  mines,  and  promised  to  exert  their 
influence  to  make  its  collection  easy,  arguing 
that  such  a  tax  would  be  productive  enough  to 
make  their  presence  desirable  in  the  several 
counties.  They  explained  the  organization  that 
had  been  established  here  for  the  benefit  of 
their  countrymen.  All  but  a  score  or  two  of 
the  Chinese  in  the  State  were  from  the  province 
of  which  Canton  is  the  capital.  They  divided 
the  pro^nnce  into  departments,  and  for  each  de- 
partment a  house  was  built  in  San  Francisco, 
and  presided  over  by  two  "  heads,"  who  were 
elected  by  the  Chinese  from  that  department. 
The  house  was  a  hotel,  a  hosj)ital,  a  post-ofiice, 
and  assembly-room,  all  in  one.  A  committee 
of  merchants,  elected  by  the  people,  served  with- 
out j)ay,  as  advisers  to  the  heads,  and  decided 
matters  in  dispute  between  them  and  the  mem- 
bers. On  arriving  in  port,  the  immigrants  go 
to  the  house  of  the  department  from  which  they 
come,  are  registered  by  the  clerk,  pay  each  a  tax 
of  ten  dollars,  and  then  are  entitled  to  all  the 
benefits  of  the  association.  The  houses  lend 
money  to  their  poor,  send  the  sick  back  to  China, 
if  they  wish  it,  and  see  that  none  return  with- 
out having  paid  their  debts.  The  clerks  keep  a 
registry  of  the  names  and  residence  of  members, 


372  THE    HISTOEY    OF    CALIFOKNIA. 

CHAP,  and  gather  up  their  votes  for  company  officers 

, ■  throuo-h  messeno^ers.      The  merchants  assured 

1850-  the  committee  that  (contrary  to  the  prevailing 
opinion),  although  at  hrst  some  came  under 
contracts  vrith  employers  in  China,  the  custom 
was  abandoned  as  unprofitable.  Most  came 
now,  they  said,  their  own  masters,  and  with 
their  own  means.  Some  had  hired  money  to 
come  with,  and  pledged  their  property  or  their 
Avages,  for  a  certain  time,  as  security,  or  jiledged 
their  children  as  slaves  in  the  event  of  non-pay- 
ment. 

The  legislation  of  the  year  resulted  in  an 
amendment  to  the  law  "  for  the  protection  of 
foreigners,"  which  required  a  license  of  four 
dollars  a  month  to  entitle  any  person  not  a  citi- 
zen (except  California  Indians)  to  work  in  the 
mines,  the  j)roceeds  to  be  divided  between  the 
State  and  county  treasuries. 

The  law  was  enforced  only  on  the  Chinese. 
They  showed  no  haste  to  buy  the  license,  but, 
when  fairly  caught,  paid  the  fee  with  meekness. 
It  was  not  long  before  the  county  tax-payers 
discovered  that  there  was  a  compensation  in  the 
unwelcome  presence  of  the  Chinese,  since  what 
they  contributed  saved  several  counties  from 
bankruptcy.  Then  the  candid  confessed  that, 
with  their  pans  and  rockers,  and  hustled  out 
of  any  good  claim  they  were  lucky  enough  to 
find  by  the   covetous  whites,   these   strangers 


185(>. 


THE   CIIIInESE.  373 

worked  principally  tlie  tailings,  and  abandoned 
claims  on  wliicli  Americans  could  not  make  a 
living.  Thougli  tkeir  countrymen  imported  isso 
much  of  their  food,  they  spent  their  money 
pretty  freely,  and  so  added  to  the  wealth  of  the 
State  in  more  ways  than  one  or  two. 

The  politicians  set  their  faces  against  the 
Johns,  but  the  people  generally  treated  them 
kindly,  and  they  must  have  sent  home  fair  re- 
ports, for  the  immigration  rather  increased,  and 
at  the  end  of  1856  their  numbers  in  the  State 
Avere  estimated  at  over  thirty-eight  thousand. 
The  Supreme  Court  having  decided  that  they 
were  "  colored,"  their  testimony  against  white 
men  was  not  taken,  and  they  were  isolated  in 
the  midst  of  the  multitude.  As  a  class,  they 
had  no  reputation  to  spare  for  truth-telling. 
Believing  in  no  God  but  their  ancestors,  and 
doubtful  if  even  they  were  not  annihilated  by 
death,  it  was  difficult  to  shape  an  oath  solemn 
enough  to  bind  them  when  they  testified  con- 
cerning each  other.  On  very  important  occa- 
sions a  sort  of  creed,  printed  on  tissue-paper  in 
Chinese  characters,  was  burned  as  they  lifted 
the  right  hand,  and  then,  if  ever,  it  was  thought 
they  might  be  trusted  to  some  extent. 

They  erected  a  temple  in  San  Francisco,  and 
set  up  an  idol,  hideous  with  bright  paint  and 
brazen  ornaments ;  but  if  strangers  handled  his 
apparel  or  his  person  they  manifested  no  of- 


1856 


374  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFOIIXIA. 

CHAP,  fence.  On  New  Year's  Day  they  made  a  terri- 
ble din  with  gongs,  drums,  and  bells  in  the 

1850-  temple,  and  set  tables  in  their  houses  for  such 
"gods"  as  there  might  be,  over  against  the  ta- 
bles of  refreshment  for  guests.  They  obsen^ed 
no  Sabbath,  and  any  thing  like  religious  wor- 
ship the  closest  observation  failed  to  discover. 
They  were  inordinate  gamblers  for  very  trifling 
stakes,  and  excessively  fond  of  theatrical  enter- 
tainments. The  appointments  of  their  stage 
were  of  the  rudest  kind,  the  acting,  whether  of 
tragedy  or  comedy,  equally  farcical  in  foreign 
eyes,  the  singing  nasal,  the  orchestra  deafening 
with  lamentable  monotones  from  gongs,  reeds, 
stringed  instruments,  and  anvils  of  hard  wood. 
They  puffed  at  their  long,  shallow-bowled  reed 
pipes  incessantly  when  at  leisure,  sipped  tea 
night  and  day  when  in-doors  and  awake,  and 
walked  single  file  the  streets,  giving  just  half 
the  walk  to  those  they  met.  A  cheery  man, 
meeting  them  in  desolate  places,  saluted  with 
"  How  are  you,  John  ? "  and  the  unvarying  re- 
ply was,  Avitli  a  jerking  nod,  "  How  are  you, 
John?"  They  were  polite,  not  obsequious,  un- 
obtrusive, and  quietly  enjoyed  their  rights  Avith- 
out  giving  offence  in  the  manner.  They  had 
little  dealings  with  the  whites,  purchasing  of 
them,  however,  whenever  tliey  could  make  a 
good  bargain  for  their  simple  wants.  Their 
merchants  had  the  respect  of  the  trade.     Their 


THE    CHINESE.  3*75 

fishmongers  competed  only  wltli  a  few  Genoese  chap. 
and  Maltese  in  San  Francisco.     Their  purifiers  __^ 
of  dirty  linen  interfered  mostly  with  machine-    1850- 
washers.     As   house-servants    the    Irish    girls    ^  '^  ' 
soon  drove  them  from   the  kitchen.     In   the 
country  a  few  were  employed  on  farms  and  in 
gardens  on  wages.    But  the  great  body  "  created 
values  out   of  nothing,"   in   the   "exhausted" 
placers,  on  their  own  account,  or  ministered  to 
the  wants  of  their  own  people  as  petty  trades- 
men. 

When  they  died,  they  were  buried,  after 
funeral  feasts  and  ceremonies  more  or  less  im- 
posing, according  to  their  position  and  wealth. 
When  the  flesh  of  their  dead  bodies  was  decay- 
ed, their  bones  were  gathered  up  by  the  agents 
of  the  companies,  polished,  preserved  in  com- 
pact form,  and  in  due  time  returned  to  rest  in 
Chinese  soil. 

In  1855,  Governor  Bigler  argued  to  the 
Legislature  the  right  of  the  State  to  prohibit 
their  landins;  on  its  shore;  he  was  shiverins: 
yet  at  the  spectacle  he  had  evoked  of  an  over- 
whelming eruption  from  Asia.  But  the  treaty 
stipulations  of  the  United  States  with  Cliina 
were  too  well  known  to  the  people,  and  Cali- 
fornia was  spared  any  such  disgraceful  legisla- 
tion as  he  proposed. 

Generally,  they  lived  in  peace  and  harmony 
with  each  other.     A  notable  exception  occurred 


376  THE    HISTORY    OF    CALIFOEXIA. 

CHAP,  on  a  bar  of  the  Stanislaus,  in  the  fall  of  1850, 
^_  "  where  two  mining  companies  quarrelled  ahout 
1850-  a  claim.  After  one  collision,  both  parties  ral- 
^^^^'  lied  their  friends,  and  one  of  them  ordered  up 
one  hundred  and  fifty  muskets  with  bayonets 
and  cartrid2:es  from  San  Francisco.  Not  know- 
ing  how  to  use  them,  when  they  came,  they 
hired  some  white  men  to  teach  them,  whom 
they  afterwards  said  they  understood  were  sent 
up  by  the  Governor  to  make  sure  of  fair*  play, 
and  to  prevent  interference  by  the  whites.  All 
things  being  ready,  the  party  with  the  muskets, 
nine  hundred  strong,  assailed  the  enemy,  who 
were  twelve  hundred  strong  and  armed  with 
Chinese  weajoons.  The  bold  assailants  fired 
and  ran ;  and  the  enemy,  panic-stricken,  ran  the 
other  way.  Two  were  killed  and  two  wounded. 
The  sheriff  intervened,  and  the  war  ended,  cost- 
ing, during  its  brief  continuance,  very  much 
less  money,  probably,  than  the  ne^vspapers  of 
the  day  reported. 

The  negro,  though  the  staple  topic  of  Con- 
frressional  le2:islation,  did  not  much  trouble 
that  of  California.  Governor  Burnett,  in  1851, 
advised  the  exclusion  of  colored  persons  from 
the  State.  The  people  were  wiser  than  their 
Governor,  and  would  consent  to  no  such  folly. 
However,  they  sacrificed  to  the  fuming  Chivalry 
so  far  as  to  deny  their  citizenship  and  prohibit 
them  from  bearing  testimony  concerning  whites 


NEGROES   IN    CALIFORNIA.  3T7 

in  tlie  courts^.     This  last  was  a  cruel  wrone^  to  chap. 

.       XXV 

humanity,  and  the  jealous  whites  suffered  their  1_^ 
share  of  its  evil ;  for,  thouo-h  a  nesjro  saw  a  man,    issn- 
white  or  black,  murdered  by  a  negro,  his  lips 
were    sealed  in    the  witness-box,  and  justice 
cheated  of  her  penalty. 

At  the  legislative  session  of  1853,  W.  C. 
Meredith,  a  Democrat,  from  Tuolumne,  present-  1853. 
ed  a  memorial  to  the  Assembly,  signed  by  ne- 
groes, asking  the  repeal  of  the  clause  prohibit- 
ing colored  persons  to  testify.  Instantly  one 
member  moved  to  thro^v  the  memorial  out  of 
the  window.  Another  did  not  want  the  journals 
"  tarnished  with  such  an  infamous  document.'^ 
The  chairman  reluctantly  ruled  the  motion  out 
of  order,  and  an  appeal  was  taken.  Finally, 
in  the  greatest  excitement,  the  jjetition  was 
unanimously  rejected,  and  the  clerk  instructed 
not  to  file  it.  The  tempest  was  too  large  for 
the  teapot,  and  the  storm  was  not  entirely  sub- 
dued for  several  days. 

As  to  the  other  classes  of  population,  the  na- 
tive Californians  early  retired  into  obscurity. 
Some  few  allied  themselves  with  Amei'ican  fami- 
lies, yet  gradually  lost  their  influence  in  public 
affairs  ;  and,  annoyed  by  squatters  and  defraud- 
ed of  their  lands,  grew  poorer  and  poorer,  till 
nothing  but  the  shadow  of  their  old  possessions 
remained.  Mexico,  and  many  parts  of  South 
America,  were  thickly  represented,  but  owing 


378  THE   niSTORY    OF   CALIFOIiNIA. 

CHAP,  to  their  Spanish  tono-ue,  they  did  Dot  much  mix 

with  the  rest,  except  lu  the  mines. 
1850-  The  Europeans  and  white  Americans  frater- 
^^^^'  nized  in  business  and  in  general  interests,  and 
were  soon  scarcely  distinguishable,  except  by 
their  pronunciation  of  the  common  English  lan- 
guage. These  produced  the  gold,  made  the 
valleys  bow  and  wave  with  grain,  beckoned 
commerce  from  every  sea,  set  the  busy  wheels 
of  mills  to  humming:,  neglected  public  affairs 
till  they  grew  desperate,  summoned  wealth  to 
their  hands  like  genii,  and  spent  it  like  princes, 
built  ma2:nificeut  wao'on-roads  over  the  moun- 
tains,  and  forced  that  wondrous  crop  of  towns 
and  cities,  some  of  which  grew  up  w^ith  amazing 
rapidity,  while  others  blossomed  with  a  name 
and  straightway  died. 


GROWTH    AND    HIIOJRANOES.  379 


1856. 


CHAPTEE  XXVI. 

GROWTH  AND  HINDRANCES  OF  THE  CITIES  AND  TOWNS. 

San  Feancisco  Lad  outgrown  the  anticipa-  ^jj.^p 
tions  of  the  most  sanguine.  In  1850  it  wore  xxvi 
the  aspect  of  a  hurriedly-built  city,  whose  peo- 
ple had  faith  in  its  noble  destiny.  It  had  many 
miles  of  graded  streets,  a  fair  system  of  sewer- 
age planned  and  partly  put  into  use,  many  sub- 
stantial store-houses  of  brick,  wharves  sufficient 
to  meet  the  demand  of  commerce,  churches, 
school-houses,  and  the  comfortable  homes  of 
families  thoroughly  satisfied  to  spend  their 
lives  in  California.  Its  eastern  front  had  ex- 
tended half  a  dozen  blocks'  width  into  the  bay, 
and  the  principal  business  was  conducted  on 
ground  made  by  the  transfer  of  the  sand-hills 
to  the  flats,  or  by  piling  and  bridging  far  be- 
yOnd  the  original  beach — a  necessity  imposed 
by  the  closeness  with  which  the  bills  of  rock 
crowded  the  bay. 

The  city  had  reached  its  condition  of  pros- 
perity through  very  severe  trials  and  in  spite 
of  thick  difficulties. 

A  great  deal  of  trouble   was  caused  by  the 


380  THE    HISTORY   OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  desperate,  reckless  villains  who  flocked  to  tliti 

XXVI       • 

^_^_'  city  from  all  parts  of  tlie  world.  Many  of  the 
1851.  best  citizens  formed  themselves  into  a  Commit- 
tee of  Vigilance,  and,  because  the  courts  could 
not  or  would  not  punish  crime,  undertook 
themselves  to  administer  justice.  On  the  11th 
of  June,  1851,  between  one  and  t\vo  o'clock  in 
the  morning,  they  executed  John  Jenkins,  by 
hano;in2:  him  to  the  cross-beam  of  the  old  adobe 
building  on  the  plaza.  Jenkins  had  robbed  a 
store,  and  had  been  tried  and  found  guilty  by 
the  committee.  On  the  11th  of  July  they  exe- 
cuted James  Stuart,  who  murdered  the  sheriff 
of  Auburn,  and  attacked  and  robbed  a  man  in 
his  own  store  on  Montgomery  Street.  On  the 
24th  of  August  they  recaptured  and  hung  Whit- 
taker  and  McKenzie,  who  had  been  taken  from 
them,  after  trial,  by  the  authorities,  and  lodged 
in  jail.  Two  weeks  later,  believing  that  they 
had  taught  incendiaries,  robbers,  and  murder- 
ers a  lesson  that  they  w*ould  not  dare  to  forget, 
the  committee,  without  disbanding,  suspended 
operations  and  left  justice  to  the  courts. 

Besides  these  social  disturbances,  fires,  negli- 
gent municipal  officers,  and  swindling  schemers 
had  done  mischief  enough  to  destroy  a  place 
less  tenacious  of  life.  It  was  estimated  that 
sixteen  million  dollars  worth  of  property  was 
consumed  by  five  fires  within  eighteen  months, 
while  the  population  numbered  but  thirty  thou- 


1856. 


GROWTH    OF    SAN   FEATTCISCO.  381 

sand.  The  most  disastrous  of  these  conflagra-  chap. 
tioiis  occurred  May  4th,  1851,  the  anniversary  J^_^ 
of  a  great  fire  the  preceding  year.  The  first  issi- 
stroke  of  the  fire-bell  aroused  the  whole  city, 
for  wherever,  in  the  compact  business  blocks? 
the  ravaofer  be^-an,  few  felt  their  lisrht,  combus- 
tible  buildings  safe.  The  foremost  men  in  the 
town  organized  themselves  into  fire  companies. 

On  the  ruins  of  these  conflagrations  build- 
ings rose  again  before  the  ashes  were  fairly  cold, 
each  time  a  little  l)etter  than  the  preceding,  and 
with  more  careful  precautions  to  render  them 
proof  against  fire.  The  immense  amount  of 
business  to  be  attended  to  gave  the  people  an 
elasticity  of  spirit  that  made  them  recover  cour- 
age with  surprising  haste,  after  apparently 
crushing  misfortunes. 

Real  estate  kept  rising  in  value  till  1854. 
Then  many  causes  combined  to  make  it  fall 
and  continue  falling  till  the  summer  of  1858. 
The  speculators  had  glutted  the  market  "with 
goods,  and  money  grew  scarce.  Wages  fell, 
rents  fell,  and  real  estate  tumbled  with  the  rest. 
The  increasing  uncertainty  of  laud  titles,  the 
exorbitant  taxes,  and  the  unsatisfactory  condi- 
tion of  state  and  city  finances,  kept  the  latter 
Irom  risino^  ag^ain.  Claims  of  astonishinsf  ab- 
surdity  were  set  up  for  property  tliat  had  been 
in  the  quiet  possession  of  occupants  who  never 
dreamed  of  a  flaw  in  their  titles. 


382  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP.       Gigantic  for  their  impudence  as  well  as  their 
extravagance  were   the  claims   of  Jose    Yves 

1853.  Limantour,  a  Frenchman  by  birth,  that  were 
presented  to  the  Board  of  Land  Commissioners 
in  1853.  He  claimed  that  when  trading  on 
the  coast  ten  years  before,  he  had  advanced  to 
Governor  Micheltorena  merchandise  and  money 
for  the  use  of  the  Departmental  Government. 
For  these  considerations  he  professed  that  the 
Governor  had  granted  to  him  fonr  square 
leagues  of  land  on  the  San  Francisco  peninsula, 
embracing  about  half  of  what  had  become  the 
most  valuable  part  of  the  city;  also  Alcatraz 
and  Yerba  Buena  Islands  and  the  Farralones, 
and  lands  lying  elsewhere  in  the  State,  cover- 
ing in  all  more  than  a  hundred  square  leagues. 
The  Board  of  Commissioners  confirmed  the 
claims.  The  incensed  people  saw  the  gloomy 
prospect,  and  doubted  if  it  were  not  the  most 
hazardous  of  all  investments  to  purchase  real 
estate  in  San  Francisco. 

An  appeal  was  taken  to  the  United  States 
District  Court,  where  counsel  for  the  United 
States  contended  that  all  the  documents  on 
which  the  claimant  relied  were  ftdse,  forged,  and 
fraudulently  fabricated  long  after  the  pretended 
dates,  and  after  the  acquisition  of  California  by 
the  United  States.     Judo;e  Hoffman  rendered 

.1858.   his  decision  (1858),  reversing  the  Board's  de- 
cree, and  rejecting  the  claims  that  were  still 


HEAVY    CITY   TAXES.  383 

pressed,  as  invalid.     He  added  that  the  proofs  chap. 
of  fraud  were  as  conclusive  and  irresistible  as  ,__^_^ 
the  attemjited  fraud  itself  was  flagrant  and  au-    1858. 
dacious.      Following  is   a   quotation  from  his 
opinion,  from  which  may  be  inferred  what  a 
grievous  nuisance  was  abated  when  the  claims 
were  rejected : — 

"  Whether  we  consider  the  enormous  extent 
or  the  extraordinary  character  of  the  alleged 
concessions  to  Limantour,  the  official  positions 
and  the  distinguished  antecedents  of  the  princi- 
pal witnesses  who  have  testified  in  support  of 
them,  or  the  conclusive  and  unanswerable 
proofs  by  which  their  falsehood  has  been  ex- 
posed— whether  we  consider  the  unscrupulous 
and  pertinacious  obstinacy  with  which  the 
claims  now  before  the  court  have  been  persisted 
in — although  six  others  presented  to  the  Board 
have  long  since  been  abandoned — or  the  large 
sums  extorted  from  property-owners  in  this  city 
as  the  price  of  the  relinquishment  of  these 
fraudulent  pretensions ;  or,  finally,  the  conclu- 
sive and  irresistible  proofs  by  which  the  perju- 
ries by  which  they  have  been  attempted  to  be 
maintained  have  been  exposed,  and  their  true 
character  demonstrated,  it  may  safely  be  affirmed 
that  these  cases  are  without  a  parallel  in  the 
judicial  history  of  the  country." 

Exorbitant  taxes  for  State  and  city  purposes 
were  paid,  and  with  a  feeling  that,  in   spite  of 


384  THE    inSTORY    OF   CALIFORXIA. 

CFiAP.  tlie  taxes,  the  city  was  nearing  insolvency.  The 
expenditures  of  the  double  county  and  city 
1856.  government  .for  the  five  years  following  the 
city's  incorporation  were  more  than  seven  and  a 
half  million  dollars;  and  the  worst  of  it  was, 
that  they  had  nothing  to  show  for  it  all  in  the 
way  of  public  buildings,  or  other  than  the  most 
elementary  improvements.  The  city's  actual 
debt,  in  1856,  was  more  than  three  and  a  half 
million  dollars — nineteen  hundred  thousand 
of  w^hich  was  funded  at  six,  seven,  and  ten  per 
cent,  interest. 

The  State,  in  1851,  had  ceded  to  the  city  the 
beach  and  water  lots,  and  confirmed  the  sales 
made  in  virtue  of  General  Kearny's  grant,  so 
that,  with  its  puel^lo  inheritance,  it  had  ample 
means  to  pay  all  debts,  if  the  land-stealers 
would  but  let  it  alone,  and  its  oflicial  guardians 
save  it  from  waste. 

In  the  early  times,  large  amounts  were  raised 
for  ordinary  expenses,  on  scrip  which  never 
bore  less  interest  than  three  per  cent,  a  month. 
As  all  work  for  the  public  was  liable  to  be 
paid  in  this  carelessly  issued  paper,  every  thing 
that  the  city  ordered  done  or  purchased  was 
charged  at  enormous  rates. 

One  of  the  city's  creditors.  Dr.  Peter  Smith, 
on  an  account  for  takin^;  care  of  its  indiii-ent 
sick,  declining  to  exchange  his  scrip  for  the  ten 
per   cent,    stock,   into   which   the   Legislature 


THE   PETEE    SMITH   JUDGMENTS,  385' 

(1851)  had  authorized  the  floating  debt  to  be  chap. 
converted,  recovered  judgment  against  the  city,  ""^ 
and  to  defray  the  amount  its  wharves  and  cer-  i85i- 
tain  uphmd  lots  were  sokl  l)y  the  sheriff.  They 
brought  scarcely  a  twentieth  part  of  their  value, 
the  belief  being  that  the  sales  were  illegal  and 
void.  As  the  sum  realized  by  the  sale  failed 
to  satisfy  the  judgment,  a  second  and  a  third 
sale  was  made  of  other  cit}'-  property,  of  an  im- 
mense value  even  then,  and  of  incalculable 
prospective  value.  For  the  same  reason  as  be- 
fore, this  property  bi-ought  merely  nominal 
prices.  Dr.  Smith,  or  parties  holding  the  scrip 
paid  him  by  the  city,  subsequently  obtained 
other  jud3'ments,  and  the  sheriff  sold  still  other 
upland  and  water  lots  to  satisfy  them;  the  Com- 
missioners of  the  Funded  Debt  meanwhile, 
under  the  advice  of  their  counsel,  Judge  Hey- 
denfelt,  protesting  that  the  city  could  give  no 
title  to  the  lots  offered  for  sale,  since  they  had 
been  conveyed,  by  ordinance  of  the  Common 
Council,  to  the  Commissioners  in  trust  for  the 
benefit  of  the  city's  creditors.  The  j^rotest  pre- 
vented competition,  but  did  not  avert  the  sale. 
At  one  sale  (January  30th,  1862)  the  sheriff' 
sold  two  thousand  acres  of  land  within  the  city 
limits  at  just  such  ruinous  prices  as  before,  to 
pay  Peter  Smith  judgments. 

An  inexplicable  muddle  came  of  it.  The  sales 
were  regarded  as  farces  at  first,  but  soon  they  sug- 

25 


386  THE   niSTORY   OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  crested  serious  thoui^hts.  Wteii  the  Commission- 
■  ers  of  the  Funded  Debt  attempted  to  i-aise  money 
1851-  on  tlie  land  of  their  trust,  this  Peter  Smith  title, 
J  806.  -[j|,g  ^  poisonous  shadow,  floated  over  it,  clouding 
their  title  and  depreciating  the  market  value  of 
the  land.  Suit  followed  suit,  and  litigation  thick- 
ened over  the  whole  matter  in  a  confused  web. 
Every  attempt  to  remedy  the  evil,  as  all  efforts 
to  prevent  it  had,  only  plunged  the  subject 
into  a  deeper  chaos.  The  end  is  not  even  yet 
reached,  though  this  was  early  demonstrated — 
that  San  Francisco  was  fast  being  stripped  of 
the  choicest  of  her  resources.  Plunged  to  the 
eyes  in  debt,  her  means  almost  wasted,  yet  her 
citizens  cheerful,  thriving,  and  getting  rich, 
San  Francisco  was  rushing  along  like  a  tough, 
stanch,  but  very  foul  ship,  with  officers  who 
would  bear  a  great  deal  of  w^atching,  and  some 
very  rough  and  suspicious  passengers  ;  yet  with 
tide  favoral)le  and  a  strong  wind  filling  all  her 
canvas. 

Sacramento,  the  second  city  in  the  State, 
was  prospering  notably  under  quite  as  rugged 
treatment.  After  the  experience  of  1850,  when 
the  place  was  overflowed  by  the  river,  its  peo- 
ple raised  the  grade  of  the  streets  five  feet,  and 
built  a  levee  alon!2:  both  river  fronts.  On  the 
3d  of  November,  1852,  a  fire  destroyed  six 
hundred  houses,  causino;  from  four  to  five  mil- 
lion   dollars   damasre.      From  December  20th. 


MAEYSVILLE.  387 

1852,  to    January  24th,    1853,  the   city  was  chap. 
again  under  water,  and   still   again   in  April,  ^^^^^^^ 

1853.  It  was  made  the  permanent  capital  I85i- 
of  the  State  in  1854.  In  July  of  that  year 
another  fire  swept  off  five  hundred  thousand 
dollars  worth  of  property.  Spite  of  this  va- 
riety and  excess  of  calamities,  the  city  increased 
with  a  rapid,  wholesome  growth  under  the  con- 
stant stimulus  of  its  great  trade  with  the  north- 
ern mines.     It  had  its  grievous  land  troubles, 

too,  its  oppressive  taxation,  and  its  debt, 
amounting,  in  the  fall  of  1856,  to  over  a  million 
and  a  half  of  dollars. 

Marysville,  laid  out  in  December,  1849  (at 
the  junction  of  the  Yuba  and  Feather  Kivers, 
where  one  Cordua,  a  German,  in  1842  had  put 
up  an  adobe  building,  naming  the  place  New 
Mecklenburg,  and  afterwards  establishing  there 
a  trading  post),  had  assumed  the  aspect  of  a 
busy  New  England  village,  with  population 
enough  to  cast  nineteen  hundred  votes  at  the 
November  election  in  1856.  Its  principal  streets 
were  lined  with  substantial  brick  building's, 
which  secured  a  remarkable  immunity  fi'om 
fires,  though  a  very  destructive  one  visited  it 
on  the  31st  of  August,  1850.  Its  site  had  been 
flooded  in  1850,  but  that  warning;  was  not 
heeded,  and  in  the  spring  of  1852  the  whole 
business  part  of  the  town  was  under  water 
again.     The    grade   of   the   streets   was  then 


388  THE    HISTORY   OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  raised  one  foot  above  tlie  Ligjliest  mark  of  tte 

XXVI  • 

■  flood,  and  the  whole  city  brought  to  one  level. 
1850-  A  crop  of  paper  cities  sprang  up  around  it,  coni- 
*  peting  for  its  trade  —  Plumas,  Eliza,  Veazie 
City,  Hamilton,  Linda,  Featherston,  and  Yales- 
ton,  all  whicb  the  best  maps  fail  to  show,  and 
which  only  local  antiquarians  are  able  to  indi- 
cate as  they  pass  tbem. 

Nearly  every  business  house  in  Nevada  was 
burned  down  March  llth,  1851,  destroying 
half  a  million  dollars  worth  of  property.  Again, 
on  September  7th,  1852,  it  was  scourged  with 
fire.  In  December  of  that  year  the  heavy  rains 
so  hindered  the  transportation  from  below  that 
the  place  was  threatened  with  famine.  Flour 
was  sold  at  forty  dollars  a  hundred-weight,  and 
Ijeef  at  forty  cents  a  pound.  But  it  was  the 
centre  of  a  rich  mining  vicinity,  and  flourished 
maugre  all  its  afflictions.  By  1853  it  was  in 
telegraphic  communication  with  Sacramento, 
and  in  1855  with  Downieville.  At  the  Novem- 
ber election  of  1856  it  cast  a  larger  vote 
(2,081)  than  any  city  in  the  State,  except  San 
Fi'ancisco  and  Sacramento.  On  the  19th  of 
July,  1856,  came  a  conflagration  that  consumed 
four  hundred  wooden  and  twenty-two  brick 
houses,  causing  a  damage  of  a  million  of  dol- 
lars, and  the  lives  of  ten  persons  who  trusted 
to  the  brick  buildings  as  fire-proof.  A  month 
later,  and  two  hundred  and  fifty  wooden  houses 


PLACEEVILLE.  389 

were  erected  on  tlie  burned  <rround,  and  twenty-  chap. 

XXVL 

five  brick  ones  were  begun.  ^^v— 

Grass  Valley — so  called  because  some  over-  isso- 
land  emigrants,  in  1849,  found  there  the  cattle 
that  had  strayed  from  them  as  they  rested  after 
their  tedious  journey  across  the  Plains  and.  the 
Sierras,  luxuriating  in  excellent  pasture — had,  on 
New  Year's  of  1851,  only  three  or  four  cabins 
in  it.  Before  the  year  ended  it  was  one  of  the 
busiest  places  in  the  mountains.  It  escaped 
fires  till  September,  1855,  when  one  visited  it, 
inflicting  damage  to  the  extent  of  three  hun- 
dred and  fifty  thousand  dollars.  The  famous 
Alison's  Eanch  quartz  mine  is  three  miles  from 
the  place.  In  1855  the  men  who  owned  this 
lead  offered  to  sell  it  for  a  thousand  dollars,  but 
found  no  purchaser.  The  first  eighteen  tons 
of  rock  taken  from  it  produced  twenty-thi'ee 
thousand  dollars.  From  October  6th,  1856,  to 
1861,  the  deposits  of  gold  from  this  mine  in  the 
mint  at  San  Francisco  were  nearly  a  million  of 
dollars. 

Placer ville — known  in  early  times  as  "Hang- 
town,"  in  memory  of  the  lynching  there  of  three 
men  who  were  arrested  for  highway  robbery 
and  two  of  them  identified  as  the  persons  guilty 
of  a  murder — owed  the  beginning  of  its  pros- 
perity to  the  rich  gold  surface  diggings  in  its 
vicinity ;  and  its  second  growth  to  the  fact  that 
it  was  on  the  most  travelled  road  from  the  bay 


390  TIIE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  to  Wasboe.  A  fire,  on  the  15tli  of  April,  1856, 
^^^^-  consumed  the  lower  part  of  the  town,  and 
1850-  another  on  tbe  6th  of  July  almost  destroyed  it. 
185G.  ^  flj.g  -j^  Weaverville  (March  7th,  1853) 
damao^ed  that  town  one  hundred  thousand  dol- 
lars ;  and  another  (September  7th,  1855),  two 
hundred  thousand.  Yankee  Jim's,  in  Placer 
County,  was  burned  down  in  June,  1852,  and 
Ophir,  July  12th,  of  the  same  year.  This  last 
place,  as  was  often  the  case  with  mining  villages 
where  the  surface  diggings  were  becoming- 
poor,  and  no  other  resource  presented  itself, 
failed  to  recover  from  the  shock.  A  fire  in 
Stockton  (February  21st,  1855)  did  fifty  thou- 
sand dollars  damage;  and  one  in  Columbia 
(July  10th,  1854)  was  figured  up  at  a  loss  of 
half  a  million  dollars.  It  was  estimated,  not 
very  accurately,  perhaps,  that  during  the  three 
years  preceding  1853,  the  losses  to  California 
by  fire  amounted  to  sixty-six  millious  of  dol- 
lars; yet,  as  the  imperfect  list  cited  above 
shows,  very  destructive  fires  were  numerous 
after  that  date. 

The  towns  of  the  southern  coast  shared  little 
in  the  general  growth,  for  they  were  away  from 
the  main  avenues  of  travel  and  trade.  They 
suffered  little,  too,  from  either  fire  or  flood,  for 
they  were  mostly  built  at  leisure,  of  adob(3,  and 
under  the  direction  of  those  who  held  the  tra- 
ditions of  the  fathers  and  the  Indians  concern- 
ing old-time  floods. 


THE    CAPITOL    ON    WHEELS.  391 

It  was   inevitable  that  these  conflagrations  chap. 

XXVI 

and  drownings   should  ruin  many  men  fiuan-  __^_J 
cially ;  but  those  who  escaped  were  generous,    1850- 
and  cheerfully  helped  up  the  prostrated,  and      "^  ' 
set  them  on  their  feet,  and  many  overtook  for- 
tune again  early.     But  where  so  few  had  family 
ties  to  bind  them  to  a  spot,  every  fire  or  other 
calamity  that  put  business  into  confusion  in- 
creased  the   tendency  to  drift   from  town  to 
town,  from  bar  to  bar,  and  to  "  rush "  to  any 
new  diggings  that  were  spoken  of  in  flattering 
terms. 

The  Legislature  fairly  represented  this  drift- 
ing habit  of  the  times  in  the  way  it  ke])t  the 
caj^ital  of  the  State  trundliDg  about.  The  first 
two  sessions  were  held  at  San  Jose,  though  early 
in  1850  the  project  of  removal  was  agitated. 
Montei'ey  tendered  laud  enough  and  all  its  pub- 
lic buildings  to  the  State  for  the  boon  of  the 
capital.  San  Jose  sent  in  several  liberal  prop- 
ositions, and  among  the  rest  the  donation  of 
a  block  of  a  hundred  and  sixty-eight  building 
lots.  Colonel  Stej^henson  and  a  business  part- 
ner offered  to  erect,  free  of  expense  to  the  State, 
j)ublic  buildings  worth  a  hundred  thousand 
dollars,  under  the  direction  of  a  legislative  com- 
mittee, if  the  Legislature  would  make  "  New 
York  of  the  Pacific"  the  capital.  But  General 
Vallejo's  offer  was  the  one  of  most  princely  aspect, 
as  viewed  on  paper.    It  was  a  tender  of  one  hun- 


392  THE    niSTJIlY    OF    CALIFOKXIA. 

CHAP,  dred  and  fifty-six  acres  of  land  on  the  Straits  of 

XX  VT  •  • 

,__^  Carquines  for  the  sites  of  public  buildings,  and 
1850-  three  hundred  and  seventy  thousand  dollars 
^^"  ■  towards  their  erection,  the  money  to  be  paid  in 
two  years.  Senator  Broderick,  of  the  commit- 
tee, rei3orted  in  favor  of  accepting  Vallejo's 
ofter,  and  the  Le<2:islature  so  far  concurred  as  to 
submit  the  subject  of  removal  to  the  people. 

The  people  clearly  cared  very  little  about  it. 
On  election  day  there  were  in  nineteen  coun- 
ties reported  but  twelve  thousand  two  hundred 
and  ninety-two  votes  cast  on  the  question,  of 
which  nearly  nine  thousand  were  for  removing 
to  Vallejo's  site.  So  the  third  session  met 
(January  5,  1852)  at  Vallejo;  and  because 
there  was  no  accommodation  for  the  members, 
it  adjourned  a  week  afterwards  to  Sacramento. 
The  next  session  (1853)  met  at  Vallejo,  and 
after  a  month  adjourned  to  Benicia.  The  fifth 
session  (1854)  met  at  Benicia,  but  before  March 
removed  to  Sacramento,  to  be  removed  no 
more,  except  temporarily,  in  1862,  when  the 
flood  made  it  impossible  to  transact  business  in 
the  drowned  city,  and  San  Francisco  enjoyed 
for  a  season  the  legislative  presence. 


FILLIBUSTEEISM.  393 


CHAPTER  XXVn. 

FILLIBUSTERISM.      - 

In  those  days  there  was  a  great  deal  said  -JSyJ'j 
about  the  "manifest  destiny"  of  the  nation  to  ^-,, — ■ 
swallow  up  by  annexation  all  of  the  continent    ^^^*^- 

■•■        ^  .  18o(). 

between  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  and  the  Isthmus, 
and  even  to  include  the  Sandwich  Islands.  It 
was  an  Atlantic  idea,  of  Southern  origin ;  but 
it  ran  like  an  epidemic  through  the  North  and 
West.  There  its  most  remarkable  effect  was 
the  curious  change  of  sentiment  it  developed  in 
conservative  circles — the  feeling  having  grown 
up  that,  whatever  the  territory  annexed,  in  a 
fair  race  slavery  would  lag,  and  the  new  coun- 
try come  into  the  Union  free.  "When  the 
"  manifest  destiny  "  dogma  in  its  career  reached 
the  Pacific  coast,  it  bred  a  perfect  rage  for  prac- 
tical fillibusterism  in  the  restless  classes.  Poli- 
tics had  little  to  do  with  the  matter,  but  there 
were  mines  on  territory  that  did  not  belong  to 
us,  and  that  was  reason  enough  for  annexing  it. 
A  leader  was  at  hand,  who  proved  to  be  one 
of  the  most  notable  fillibusters  of  the  century. 
William  Walker  was  born  in    1824,  at  Nash- 


394  THE    IIISTORY    OF    CALIFOKXIA. 

CHAP,  ville,  Tennessee.  He  studied  medicine,  and 
XXVII.  gJ.a(J^r^^<^(^|  In  it  both  at  liome  and  in  Paris,  but 
1850-  never  practised.  He  studied  law,  went  to  New 
I80G.  Orleans,  connected  himself  with  the  Crescent 
newspaper,  moved  to  California  in  1850,  and 
became  an  assistant  editor  of  the  San  Francisco 
Herald^  in  which  capacity  he  offended  Judge 
Levi  Parsons,  of  the  District  Court,  who  fined 
him  five  hundred  dollars  for  contempt  of  court 
in  an  article  he  had  written.  AValker  refused 
to  pay  the  fine,  and  was  sent  to  prison.  The 
people  held  an  indignation  meeting,  expressed 
their  trust  in  the  press,  and  resolved  that  it 
should  not  be  put  down  for  any  imaginary  con- 
tempt of  "  courts  which  cannot  1)6  reduced  much 
lower  than  they  have  reduced  themselves,"  and 
went  in  a  body  to  console  the  prisoner.  By  a 
writ  of  haheas  corpus  he  was  discharged.  The 
Legislature  took  up  the  matter,  and  a  commit- 
tee recommended  Parsons'  impeachment,  but 
soon  the  subject  was  droj^ped.  Walker  after- 
Avards  practised  law  for  a  short  time  in  Marys- 
ville,  and  then  took  to  fillibustering. 

The  province  of  Sonora  was  well  known  to 
he  rich  in  minerals,  and  to  wear  very  loosely 
the  robe  of  Mexican  rule.  A  scheme  was  coii- 
1853.  cocted,  in  1853,  for  its  conquest.  Money  was 
raised  by  the  issue  of  scrip  to  be  redeemed  by 
the  fii'st  proceeds  of  the  new  Government,  and 
a  vessel  procured  and  fitted  out  as  the  pioneer 


walker's  schemes  or  cois^quest.  395 

in  the  unlawful  enterprise.     General  Hitchcock,  chap. 
who  commauded  the  United  States  troops  on  ^^^^ 
the  coast,  ordered  the  vessel  seized.      It  was    i853. 
done,  but  the  prosecution  was  pushed  with  so 
little  zeal  that  she  was  soon  released,  much  to 
the  general's  disgust. 

Meanwhile  the  bark  Caroline  was  fitted  out, 
and  in  her  Walker  and  forty-six  men  sailed 
on  the  16th  of  October.  Landing  at  La  Paz, 
on  the  peninsula  of  Lower  California,  the  ad- 
venturers kidnapped  the  governor,  hoisted  a 
flag  of  their  OAvn,  and  proclaimed  Lower  Cali- 
fornia an  independent  republic.  They  after- 
wards had  a  slight  biush  with  the  natives,  but 
the  natives  suffered  all  the  loss.  "Walker  was 
now  formally  elected  president  by  his  handful 
of  followers,  and  he  appointed  a  goodly  number 
of  them  cabinet  members  and  to  other  hi^rh 
offices.  Then  retiring^  in  their  vessel  to  Mao^da- 
lena  Bay,  they  disapjieared  for  three  weeks 
from  view.  Next  they  were  heard  from  at 
Encinada,  a  little  south  of  the  California  boun- 
dary line,  in  Lower  California,  whence  they 
sent  flaming  accounts  of  their  conquests  to  San 
Diego. 

The  news  made  a  great  sensation  in  San 
Francisco  among  the  shiftless,  impatient  classes; 
and  the  "dead  broke"  and  desperate  came  down 
from  the  mines  in  greater  numbers  than  could 
be    accepted  to  volunteer  as  recruits.      After 


oOG  THE    TTISTOTtY    OF   CALIFORNIA^ 

(riAP.  General  Hitchcock's  late  experience  he  ciid  not 
' '      ■  feel  called  upon  to  meddle,  the  other  authorities 

1853.  Avere  glad  to  get  rid  of  some  who  were  going, 
the  newspapers  rejoiced  in  the  sensation  and 
kept  their  peace  about  the  morality  or  legality 
of  the  expedition,  and  the  people  laughed  at  it 
as  a  very  good  joke.  On  the  13th  of  December, 
the  bark  Anita  sailed  ^\■ith  a  hundi'ed  and 
fifty  men  or  more.  Arriving  at  Enciuada, 
Walker  by  proclamation  abolished  the  repub- 
lic of  Lower  California,  and  announced  that  of 
Sonora,  with  boundaries  embracing  both  prov- 
inces. He  took  the  presidency  himself,  and 
gave  the  vice-presidency  to  Colonel  Watkins 
of  the  Anita. 

1854.  But  with  all  the  cattle  and  corn  they  bought 
with  Sonora  scrip  or  confiscated,  the  president 
could  not  feed  his  folloAvers  to  their  taste. 
Some  half  a  hundred  of  them  deserted  and 
tried  to  make  their  way  to  San  Diego.  A  few 
were  caught,  of  whom  Walker  had  two  flogged 
and  expelled,  and  two  others  shot  for  example's 
sake.  With  about  a  hundred  still  faithful  to 
him,  he  set  out  in  JMarch,  1854,  overland  foi- 
Sonora,  but,  harassed  by  the  natives  out  of  all 
supplies,  very  hungry  and  quite  dispirited,  they 
gave  that  up,  and,  turning  northward,  surren- 
dered themselves  as  prisoners  to  the  United 
States  troops.  Taken  to  San  Francisco,  most 
of  them  were  set  at  liberty  on  their  parole. 


walker's    schemes    of   CO]!rQDEST.  397 

Meanwhile,  Vice-President  Watkins,  having^  char. 

.  XXVII 

preceded  them  to  San  Francisco,  had  been  ar-  __^_" 
raigned  before  the  United  States  District  Court,  1854. 
Judge  Hoffman  presiding,  and  found  guilty  of 
setting  on  foot  a  military  expedition  against 
Mexico.  He  was  condemned  to  j^ay  a  fine 
of  fifteen  hundred  dollars.  Frederick  Emory, 
Walker's  secretary  of  state,  pleaded  guilty  to 
the  same  charge,  and  was  fined  to  the  same 
amount.  Walker  himself  was  afterwards  tried 
and  acquitted. 

Trouble  springing  up  in  Nicaragua,  he  gath- 
ered some  sixty  or  seventy  followers,  and  left 
in  May,  1855,  to  assist  the  revolutionary  fac-  1855. 
tion.  They  landed  at  Realejo,  and  success  soon 
smiled  on  the  side  they  espoused.  Then  Walk- 
er began  to  use  his  power  as  a  dictator.  He 
revoked  the  charter  under  which  the  Vander- 
bilt  Steamship  Company  sent  its  passengers 
across  Nicaragua,  ap2:)ointed  E.  J.  C.  Kewen 
and  two  others  commissioners  to  wind  up  the 
affairs  of  the  company,  and  gave  to  Edmund 
Randolph  a  new  charter  for  twenty-five  years' 
time.  Hitherto  he  was  but  generalissimo  of 
the  forces ;  now  he  caused  himself  to  be  elected 
president  of  the  republic,  and  he  abrogated 
the  deci'ee  by  which  slavery  had  for  thirty-two 
years  been  prohibited.  An  insurrection  took 
place,  fomented  by  the  Vander]>ilt  Company, 
and  joined  by  several  Central  American  States. 


398  THE    HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP.  Walker,  "being  hard  pushed,  surrendered  himself 
^_^_"  in  May,  1857,  with  sixteen  of  his  officers,  to  the 
1857.    United  States  authorities.     Returnino:  as^ain  in 
November  to  Nicaragua,  Commodore  Paulding, 
of  tlie  United  States  Navy,  compelled  him  and 
one  hundred  and  thirty-two  of  his  followers  to 
surrender.      President   Buchanan   had,  in   his 
message,  denounced  Walker's  llllibustering  ex- 
pedition, but  he  condemned  Paulding  for  land- 
ing his  force  on  foreign  soil  to  extinguish  it. 
Walker,  freed  again,  raised  more  followers  in 
the  United  States,  and  proceeded  to  Honduras. 
There  lie  was  cajDtured,  condemned  by  court- 
martial,  and  shot  at  Truxillo  on  the  3d  of  Sep- 
1860.    tember,  1860. 

Personally,  Walker  was  a  small  man,  slow  in 
his  speech,  reserved,  gray-eyed,  freckled,  unat- 
tractive, heartless.  His  confederates  in  Califor- 
nia were  men  of  very  opposite  traits  and  prin- 
ciples; nor  is  it  easy  to  judge  from  their 
character  what  the  arch-fillibuster's  motive 
was.  Some  hot  ambition  fired  his  cold  nature. 
He  wished  to  make  a  position  and  a  name,  not 
in  the  vulgar  way.  Indifferent  to  slavery  or 
freedom,  he  was  willins:  to  use  either  as  it 
would  promote  his  end.  Perhaps  he  dreamed 
of  a  Southern  empire,  with  slavery  as  its  corner- 
stone, anticipating  the  attempt  of  Jefferson 
Davis  and  his  fellow-traitors.  It  is  hardly  prob- 
able that  the  conspirators  took  him  into  their 


VIOLATION    OF   THE   KEUTRALITT   LAWS.  399 

counsels.  More  likely,  believing  tliat  tlie  chap. 
American  Union  would  soon  embrace  all  ,_^ 
north  of  the  Isthmus,  he  aspired  to  shape  the  i854. 
destinies  of  whatever  land  he  could  conquer  by 
proclamation  or  his  sword,  in  such  fashion  that 
when  the  time  for  annexation  should  come,  he 
would  be  the  Sam  Houston  of  the  new  State, 
entitled  to  its  first  senatorial  honors,  with  a 
prestige  that  might,  perhaps,  in  time,  make  him 
chief  mao-istrate  of  the  Union.  His  reward  was 
an  early  death,  and  such  fame  as  a  pirate  wins. 
However,  he  gave  a  cbeap  reputation  to  some 
very  small  men  who  never  would  have  been 
heard  of  but  for  him,  and  some  men  of  char- 
acter were  seriously  compromised  by  their  con- 
nection with  him. 

Interlacing  with  the  trials  of  Walker  and  his 
men  were  those  of  the  Mexican  and  French 
consuls  at  San  Francisco,  which  produced  still 
more  excitement.  The  Pacific  Military  Divi- 
sion was  commanded  by  General  John  E.  Wool, 
who  was  determined  to  put  down  fillibustering. 
The  Mexican  consul,  Mr.  Del  Valle,  under  in- 
structions from  his  Government,  prevailed  upon 
some  five  or  six  hundred  persons,  mostly  French 
or  Germans,  to  join  an  expedition,  with  a  pur- 
pose not  very  clearly  explained,  to  the  province 
of  Sonora.  When  they  were  about  to  eml)ark 
in  the  British  ship  Challenge^  General  Wool 
ordered  that  vessel  seized.     She  was  released. 


400  THE    IIISTOKY    OF    CALirOE?f^\. 

ciTAP.  however,  in  a  day  or  two,  and  permitted  to  de- 
^__^_^'  part ;  but  the  general  had  Consul  Del  Valle 

i8o4.  arrested  on  a  charo^e  of  enlistins^  soldiers  for  a 
foreign  power  on  United  States  territory.  The 
trial  that  followed  was  tedious  and  imbittering. 
It  became  necessary,  in  the  course  of  it,  to  have 
the  French  consul,  Mr.  Dillon,  in  court  as  a 
witness ;  but  that  gentleman  stood  on  his  con- 
sular dignity,  declined  the  invitation,  and  ig- 
nored the  summons  that  followed.  The  mar- 
shal finally  ])rought  him  into  court,  where 
Judge  Hoffman  allowed  the  justice  of  his 
claim  for  exemption.  But  Dillon  held  that 
France  had  been  insulted  by  his  arrest,  and 
so  pulled  down  his  consular  flag.  The  trial 
of  Del  Valle  proceeded,  and  he  was  found 
guilty. 

Dillon  was  next  arrested,  charged  with  aiding 
the  Mexican  consul  in  his  unlawful  enterprise. 
He  pleaded,  as  Del  Valle  had  done,  that  the 
Challenge  expeditionists  went,  not  as  fiUibusters, 
but  to  put  down  fiUibusters,  and  especially  the 
Count  Raousset  de  Boulbon  ;  who,  failing  to 
find  the  Arizona  silver  mine  he  souirht,  and 
goaded  by  persecution,  had  turned  to  political 
schemings.  The  jury  disagreed,  and  the  prose- 
cution was  abandoned.  Further  proceedings 
against  Del  Valle,  too,  who  had  not  yet  been 
sentenced,  were  suspended.     In  November  of 


VIOLATIOIS'    OF   THE    NEUTRALITY    LAWS.  401 

1855,  Mr.    Dillon   raised    Ins  flap;  asrain    as  a  chap. 

•        XXVIl 

French   war-vessel   entered   tlie   harbor,  which 
was  saluted  with  apologetic  guns,  and  the  con-    1855. 
sular  trouble  was  happily  ended. 

26 


102  THE   HISTOEY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 


CHAPTER   XXVIII. 

A   FINANCIAL   STOBM. 

CRAP.       A  GREAT  financial    storm    passed    over  the 
,  State   early   in    1855.     Tlie    Constitution  pro- 

1855.  Mbited  incorporations  for  banking  purposes, 
and  forbade  the  issue  of  any  paper  currency. 
In  the  early  times  men  deposited  their  spare 
gold-dust  with  such  merchants  as  had  safes  or 
vaults.  As  business  increased,  houses  were  es- 
tablished in  all  the  j)i'iiicipal  towns  with  the 
special  purpose  of  exchanging  coin  for  the  dust 
of  the  miners,  of  receiving  deposits,  furnishing 
exchanc;e,  and,  in  short,  of  doino;  a  2:eneral  bank- 
ing  business,  always  excepting  that  they  could 
utter  no  bank-bills. 

It  happened  that  the  winter  of  1854-5  was 
very  chary  of  its  rains,  and,  in  consequence,  the 
mines  could  not  be  worked  extensively.  Hence, 
the  miners,  who  were  generally  cash  customers, 
wanted  credit  w  ith  the  mountain  merchants ; 
these  wanted  it  of  the  jobbers;  these  of  the 
consignees  and  importers;  and  these  of  the 
Eastern  shippers.  Meanvvhile  the  Eastern  mer- 
chants   were  pouring   goods  into  the  already 


FAILURE   OF   PAGE,  BACOJS^    &   CO.  403 


overstocked   market.      At   auction   tkeir   con-  char 
signments  found  a  sale,   because  tliey  were  so  ^_^_, 
cheap,  and  tlie  gold  kept  flowing  Eastward  to   i85o. 
pay  for  tliem.     Most  gold-shipments  were  made      ^  ' 
througli  the  banks,  which  were  drained  fear- 
fully low  of  their  treasure. 

At  this  critical-  time,  news  arrived  that  tlie 
house  of  Page  &  Bacon,  of  St,  Louis,  had  got 
into  trouble  through  its  advances  to  the  Ohio 
and  Mississippi  Railroad.  At  once  l^egan  a  run 
upon  the  leading  bank  in  California  (Page, 
Bacon  <fe  Co.'s),  which  was  in  close  business  re- 
lations with  the  St.  Louis  firm.  The  bank 
stood  it  for  a  few  days,  and  then,  on  February 
22d,  Washington's  birthday,  it  suspended.  A 
panic 'seized  the  town,  and  soon  affected  the 
whole  State.  The  house  of  Adams  &  Co., 
which  had  grown  from  an  express  business 
into  a  large  banking  business,  also  suspended 
next  day,  and  their  books,  notes,  dust,  coin,  and 
so  forth  Avere  turned  over,  at  least  so  the  pub- 
lic supposed,  to  Alfred  A.  Cohen,  as  receiver. 
Wells,  Fargo  &,  Co.  followed,  and  Henry  M. 
Naglee  was  appointed  their  receiver.  They 
resumed  soon  after,  and  continue  yet,  with  an 
express  business  added  to  their  banking,  whose 
ramifications  may  be  traced  throughout  the 
States  and  in  Europe.  Dr.  Wright's  Savings 
Bank  and  some  others  in  San  Francisco  closed. 
In  the  interior,  besides  the  branch  offices  of  the 


404  THE    HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  large  city  houses,  many  smaller  banks  shut  up, 
^'^^^  ■  and    the   crash  among  the   merchants   swiftly 

1855.  followed. 

Feb.  ^2  ^^Q  suspending  banks — there  were  a  few, 
some  of  which  are  still  in  operation,  that  weath- 
ered the  gale — insisted  that  it  was  solely  a  lack 
of  coin  that  compelled  their  closing,  and  that 
they  had  abundant  assets  if  they  only  could  be 
given  a  little  time  to  make  them  available. 
Many  of  the  leading  merchants,  to  whom  Page, 
Bacon  &  Co.  were  largely  indebted,  were  so 
well  satisfied  that  time  alone  w^as  wanting  in 
their  case,  that  they  guaranteed  the  time-certifi- 
cates of  the  house,  and  Page,  Bacon  &  Co.  soon 
started  again  ;  but  only  to  stumble  deeper  into 
the  mire.  The  gentlemen  who  guaranteeil  their 
certificates  were  helped  out  of  their  liability  by 
a  decision  of  the  Suj^reme  Court,  that  a  discrep- 
ancy of  dates  on  some  of  the  certificates  and 
their  bond  was  fatal  to  the  validity  of  the 
former. 

Nine  years  afterwards,  when  it  was  represent- 
ed that  all  that  either  the  San  Francisco  or  the 
St.  Louis  house  had  relied  on  to  make  good  their 
promises  was  gone,  William  T.  Coleman,  a 
brotber-in-law  of  Mr.  Bacon,  stated  to  a  meeting 
of  the  creditors  of  the  California  house,  that  the 
remainincr  total  indebtedness  in  tliis  State  was 
about  half  a  million  of  dollars,  aside  from  in- 
terest, which  w^as  as  much  more.     He  proposed 


FAILUEE    OF    ADAMS    &    CO.  405 

to  pay  ten  per  cent,  on  the  principal,  if  creditors  chap. 
would  accept  it,  for  the  sake  of  releasing  Bacon.  _^_,' 
But  the  creditors  thought   five  per   cent,   on  1855. 
paper  that  they  had   carried  nine  years  was 
scarcely  worth  accepting,  and  the  meeting  dis- 
solved, agreeing  to  nothing. 

For  Adams  <fe  Co.  there  was  a  stormy  future. 
The  bitterness  of  the  indignation  of  their  credi- 
tors is  scarcely  yet  out  of  their  mouths.  They 
began  in  San  Francisco  in  1850,  soon  came  into 
an  immense  business,  were  universally  confided 
in,  and  were  never  suspected  of  unsoundness 
until  after  their  failure.  The  public  very  soon 
after  that  event  began  to  fancy  that  there  was 
some  collusion  in  the  appointment  of  Cohen  as 
receiver,  who  deposited  at  least  a  portion  of 
the  funds  turned  over  to  him  with  Palmer, 
Cook  &  Co.,  his  sureties,  a  notable  firm  of  bank- 
ers, which  had  gone  through  the  panic  of  Feb- 
ruary without  harm.  The  creditors,  thoroughly 
aroused,  at  last  obtained  the  appointment  of  H. 
M.  Naglee  as  receiver,  in  place  of  Cohen  ;  but, 
though  they  had  the  shrewd  counsel  of  Trenor 
W.  Park,  it  was  not  an  easy  task  to  make  Cohen 
surrender  the  assets  he  had  received  to  his  suc- 
cessor. So  much  of  them  as  Palmer,  Cook  & 
Co.  held  on  deposit  that  firm  refused  to  give 
up.  Suit  followed  suit,  and  Mr.  Jones,  one  of 
the  partners,  was  imprisoned  for  contempt  of 
the  Fourth  District  (Judge  Hager's)  Court.    Re- 


406  THE   HISTOKY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  lenting  at  last,  Jones  handed  over  so  mucli  as  Le 
xxvni.  j^^^^^  ^^^1  ^^^^  released. 

1855-  Cohen  was  of  more  stnT)born  stuff,  or  else  the 
^^^6-  ignorance  that  he  professed  was  genuine.  He 
too  was  imprisoned  for  contempt,  and  one  ques- 
tion that  was  asked — what  became  of  a  certain 
amount  of  money  that  was  removed  on  a  par 
ticular  night,  from  Alsop  &  Company's  vaults 
— is  not  to  this  day  answered.  The  books 
would  tell,  thouo'ht  the  creditors  ;  but  on  search 

7  O  ^ 

they  were  missing.  One  day  a  bag  of  books 
was  found  floating  in  the  bay,  near  North 
Beach,  by  some  Irishmen,  who,  on  being  as- 
sured that  they  were  the  missing  accounts  of 
Adams  &  Co.,  caught  the  infection  of  the  times, 
and  asked  thirty  thousand  dollars  for  them. 
The  officers  of  the  law  searched  the  vicinity  of 
the  finders'  homes,  and  at  last  discovered  the 
books,  wet  and  water-soiled,  between  two  mat- 
tresses. But  th^  important  leaves  detailing 
the  expenditures  and  receipts  of  February  21st 
and  22d  were  wanting. 

Cohen,  still  persisting  that  the  l)Ooks  were 
never  in  his  possession,  and  that  he  had  told  all 
he  knew,  was  allowed  to  lie  in  jail.  He  was 
prosecuted  for  embezzlement,  and  the  jury 
found  that  two  hundred  and  sixty-nine  thou- 
sand dollars  had  gone  into  his  hands,  for  which 
no  account  was  made.  But  suddenly,  when 
Judge  Hager  had  gone  East,  and  while  Park 


Cohen's  contempt  of  court.  407 

was  away,  application  was  made  to  tlie  Supreme  chap 
Court  for  his  release,  and  it  was  granted.  ^_^_ 

It  was  a  mystery  wliy  the  prosecution  of  1855- 
Colien  should  so  suddenly  cease,  and  the  inti- 
mate relations  soon  after  found  to  exist  between 
Park  and  Cohen's  sureties,  Palmer,  Cook  &  Co., 
and  the  connection  of  both  with  Fremont  and 
the  Mariposa  mine  during  the  Presidential  cam- 
paign of  1856,  caused  some  scandal,  l)ut  it  re- 
mained a  mystery  until  the  subject  was  forgot- 
ten. 

Meanwhile,  Isaiah  C.  Wo.ods,  the  resident  1855. 
partner  and  manager  of  the  house  of  Adams  &  ^  "^' 
Co.,  slipped  off  for  Australia,  and  although  in 
a  card  he  said  he  was  going  for  the  l)enefit  of 
creditors,  he  has  not  yet  returned.  The  Su- 
preme Court  decided  his  proceedings  in  insol- 
vency void,  and  further  raised  the  hopes  of  cred- 
itors by  determining  that  those  who  had  taken 
out  attachments  must  fare  precisely  as  the  rest ; 
but  nothino;  was  saved  fi'om  the  wreck. 

Among  the  bankers  ruined  by  this  financial 
storm  was  "James  King,  of  William."  Born  in 
Virginia,  he  went  to  California  in  1848. 
When  he  failed  he  reserved  nothins^  of  the 
handsome  fortune  he  had  made  as  a  banker, 
and  refused  to  avail  himself  of  the  insolvency 
act,  for  which  scores  eagerly  applied.  He  be- 
came a  clerk  with  Adams  &  Co.,  but  soon  per- 
ceived practices  repugnant  to  his  nature.     Be- 


408  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFORFLV. 

CHAP,  fore  he  had  decided  that  it  was  right  to  leave, 
■  seeing  that  many  of  his  old  customers  had  fol- 

1855.  lowed  him  to  that  house,  came  its  failure. 
^  ■  ■  Now,  entirely  out  of  employment,  and  believ- 
ing that  an  independent  press  might  shed  light 
enough  on  the  wretched  state  of  society  to  com- 
pel its  reform,  he  associated  himself  with  C.  O. 
Gerberding,  and  began  (October  8th,  1855)  the 
publication  of  the  daily  Evening  Bulletin,  It 
was  a  small  sheet,  and  its  editor's  inexperience 
in  his  new  profession  was  marked  in  the  first 
as  in  many  a  succeeding  number.  But  it  was 
from  the  start  a  power  and  a  terror  to  evil- 
doers. Intimately  acquainted  with  the  villany 
of  men  in  a  rank  that  too  often  is  not  amenable 
to  law  or  even  to  public  sentiment,  he  began 
at  once  to  apply  the  lash  to  their  shoulders. 
He  had  not  much  to  say  about  sin,  but  sinners 
he  flayed  alive.  Into  Palmer,  Cook  &  Co., 
Broderick,  Cohen,  into  city  officials  derelict  in 
duty,  into  courts  that  shielded  crime  with  law, 
into  lawyers  almost  as  a  class,  but  specifically 
enough,  into  ballot-box  stuffers  and  ward  colo- 
nists, into  politicians  of  all  schools,  into  any- 
body that  seemed  to  him  to  be  injuring  society, 
sapping  its  virtue,  or  defending  its  criminals, 
he  thrust  his  weapon  with  all  his  might. 

He  was  exceedingly  careful  of  his  facts.  The 
thought  of  lil^'l  suits  never  disturlied  him.  He 
gave  early  notice  tliat  he  would  not  fight  a 


JAliIES    KTTSTG.  409 

duel,  and  that  for  assassins  he  went  prepared,  chap. 
The  people  rallied  to  his  support  as  if  Justice  ,__^^__.' 
had  come  down  to  edit  a  paper.  He  told  secrets  i855- 
that  made  rich  villains  wince  and  detectives  ^'  '^' 
wonder  how  he  learned  them.  The  Richmond 
of  his  heaviest  siege  was  "  Palmer,  Cook  &  Co.'' 
He  claimed  that  they  were  doing  a  general 
Lanking  business,  and  so  were  amenal)le  to 
honest  criticism.  He  charged  them  with  hei- 
nous political  crimes ;  he  alleged  that  they  fur- 
nished the  funds  for  Broderick  to  make  his 
successful  fight  against  Gwiu,  and  compelled 
Gwin  (whose  defeat  was  no  cause  for  regret) 
to  confess  that  Palmer  kej)t  him  out  of  the 
Senate ;  they  were  kings  of  the  lobby.  He 
said  they  compelled  office-holders  to  engage 
them  as  sureties  that  they  might  finger  the 
funds.  He.  showed  that  while  they  were  on 
Cohen's  bonds  for  a  million  dollars,  they  were 
on  the  bonds  of  State,  city,  and  county  officers 
for  half  a  million,  and  of  other  persons  and  offi- 
cers enough  more  to  make  the  total  of  their 
obligations  of  that  sort  over  two  million  dol- 
lars. He  charged  them  with  financial  unsound- 
ness and  political  corruption,  with  debauching 
public  officers,  controlling  elections,  and  buying 
judicial  decisions. 

About  vulgar  criminals  he  made  less  noise, 
but  when  Cora,  the  murderer  of  Marshal  Rich- 
ardson, was  supposed  to  be  rather  loosely  held 


410  THE    HISTORY    OF    CALIFOENLV. 

CHAP,  hy  the  sheriff,  lie  exclaimed  in  his  paper,  "  If 
,___"Mr.  Sheriff  Seannell   does   not   remove   Billy 
1856.  Mulligan  from  his  j^resent  post  as  keeper  of  the 
county  jail,  and  Mulligan  lets  Cora  escape — 
hang  Billy  Mulligan ;  and  if  necessary  to  get 
rid  of  the  sheriff*,  hang  him — hang  the  sheriff'!" 
The  price   that   James   King  paid  for  this 
independence,  these   bold,  unusual   utterances, 
which  the  disjointed  times  demanded,  will  ap- 
pear in  a  future  chajDter. 

The  finances  of  the  State  were  coming  into  a 
veiy  bad  way.  Prohibited  by  the  Constitution 
from  creating  a  del)t  of  over  three  hundred 
thousand  dollars,  except  under  circumstances 
that  did  not  then  exist,  a  debt  of  ten  times  that 
amount  had  been  contracted.  At  the  close  of 
tlie  year  1856,  the  aggregated  city,  county,  and 
State  debts  amounted  to  twelve  million  one 
hundred  and  sixty-three  thousand  dollars.  The 
State  owned  the  tide  lands,  ])ut  early  gave  away 
to  the  several  cities  most  of  those  j^ortions  of 
them  from  which  a  revenue  might  have  been 
raised.  It  owned  the  swamp  land,  donated  to 
it  by  Congress  for  purposes  of  reclamation,  on 
which  it  raised  something  by  sales.  It  owned 
several  millions  of  acres  more,  given  it  by  Con- 
gress, and  by  the  terms  of  the  gift  or  by  local 
legislation  devoted  to  school  purposes.  Besides 
these  resources,  it  had  great  ex])ectations  that 
Congress  would  refund  the  customs  collected  at 


STATE   FINANCES.  411 

San  Francisco  while  California  was  neither  a  chap. 
Territory  nor  a  State ;  Init  they  were  never  real-  _,^_ 
izecl.      To  raise  money,   then,  for  current  ex-   i855. 
penses,  the  chief  reliable  resort  was  taxation. 
Real  and  personal  pro23erty  were  taxed  at  a 
high  rate ;  poll-taxes  were  levied,  and  all  pro- 
prietors of  theatres  and  shows,  all  bankers,  bro- 
kers, foreign  miners,  merchants,  tavern-keepers, 
and  the  officers  of  incorporations  for  gain  were 
required  to  take  out  licenses;  but  the  tax-col- 
lectors were   not    quick   enough  to  catch    the 
shifting   poj^ulation,   and   high   rates   brought 
small  returns. 

The  Legislature  began  to  be  eyed  suspicious- 
ly, especially  from  San  Francisco.  It  was  al- 
ways plotting  some  scheme  that  disturbed  the 
temper  of  citizens.  Session  after  session  it 
attempted  to  extend  the  city's  water-front  in  a 
manner  that  would  enrich  a  few  at  the  expense 
of  the  many  and  of  commerce.  In  1853,  a  bill  i853. 
to  extend  the  front  at  some  points  six  hundred 
feet  into  the  bay,  passed  the  Assembly  The 
five  San  Francisco  members  who  opposed  it — 
John  Sime  vras  of  the  numljer — resigned  their 
seats,  and  were  re-elected  on  that  issue  by  an 
immense  majority.  In  the  Senate  the  bill  was 
defeated  only  by  the  casting  vote  of  Lieutenant- 
Governor  Purdy.  Governor  Bigler  advised  in  i854. 
his  next  message  another  effort  at  extension, 
pleading  the  necessities  of  the  State,  which  sadly 


412  TIIE    HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA 

CHAP,  wanted   the  revenue  that  the  water-lots  would 
■fetch,  but  happily,  though  backed  by  a  horde 

1854.  of  hungry  speculators,  the  city  was  saved  the 
infliction. 

The  lobby,  which  early  became  a  formidable 
power  at  the  capital,  devised  schemes  for  ob- 
tainino-  valuable  franchises  for  toll-roads  lead- 
ing  out  of  the  cities  and  over  the  mountains, 
and  for  bridges ;  but  Governor  Bigler  was 
sound  on  that  question  ;  he  vetoed  most  that 
came  before  him,  and  the  franchise-hunters  tar- 
ried till  a  later  day  for  their  harvest. 

The  Federal  courts  commanded  respect  at  all 
times ;  but  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  State  had 
only  a  tolerable  reputation.  The  personal  char- 
acter of  some  of  the  judges  was  bad.  If  there 
was  ability,  sj)otless  integrity  did  not  always 
accompany  it;  if  honesty,  it  was  not  always 
well  mixed  witli  wisdom. 


POLITICS  413 


CHAPTER  XXIX. 

POLITICS. 

Politics  had  grown  to  be  a  profession,  and  (.^^p 
its  professors  were  not  eminently  tlie  salt  of  the  ^xix. 
earth.     The  honest,    order-loving   people  were  ^^^^ 
blamable  for  leaving  their  local  and  State  policy  i^^g. 
to  be  controlled  so  entirely  by  persons  too  idle 
to  labor,  and  too  fond  of  office  and   the  spoils 
of  party  to  be  trusted  safely.      They  suffered 
for  their  neglect,  in  pocket,  in  reputation,  in  the 
peace  of  community. 

A  Democratic  Administration  had  acquired 
the  country ;  but  a  Whig  Administration  first 
enjoyed  it.  Certainly  it  might  Lave  managed 
its  inheritance  better.  It  succeeded  early  in 
making  every  depaitment  of  Federal  rule  of- 
fensive to  the  people.  It  persisted  in  collecting 
customs  on  the  basis  of  the  war  levy  long  after 
peace  had  been  restored.  It  left  the  country 
without  the  existence  of  either  a  Territorial  or 
State  Government.  It  was  not  slow  to  furnish 
postal  facilities ;  but  the  rates  of  postage  were 
maintained  at  an  intolerably  high  figure.  Presi- 
dent Fillmore  advised  that  the  mines  be  held 


414  THIC   HISTORY    OF   CALIFOKXTA. 

CHAP,  as  United  States  property,   and  that  tbey  be 

XXIX  1       i         ./  ' 

^_^_'  made  to  contribute  to  the  Federal  revenue,  than 
which  nothino;  could  be  devised  to  set  the 
miners  more  stubbornl}'  against  the  party  in 
power. 

For  these  and  other  reasons,  the  Whigs,  not- 
withstanding all  their  patronage,  gained  nothing 
for  their  party  in  California,  and  never  carried 
the  State.     The  first  Governor  elected  by  the 

1849.  people  (1840)  was  Peter  H.  Burnett,  a  Demo- 
crat. The  total  number  of  votes  cast  was  but 
fourteen  thousand  one  hundred  and  seventeen. 
John  A.  Sutter  received  two  thousand  two 
hundred  and  one ;  John  W.  Geary,  fourteen 
hundred  and  seventy-five;  W.  M.  Stewart, 
six  hundred  and  nineteen ;  W.  S.  Sherwood, 
three  thousand  one  hundred  and  eighty-eight  • 
and  Burnett,  six  thousand  six  hundred  and 
thirty-four.  The  first  Legislature  was  of  like 
politics  as  the  Governor.  After  a  single  year's 
service,  Burnett  resigned,  and  John  McDougall, 
the  Democratic  Lieutenant-Governor,  succeeded 
to  his  chair — David  C.  Broderick  beino:  elected 
President  of  the  Senate  to  fill  the  vacancy  thus 
created. 

In  the  fall  of  1851  tlie  people  elected  again. 

1851.  John  Bigler  (a  Pennsylvania  Democrat,  whose 
familiarity  with  parliamentary  rules  made  him 
Speaker  ^:>r^  tern,  of  the  Assembly  in  1850,  and 
permanent  Speaker  in   1851)  received  twenty- 


EARLY    ELECTIOl^TS.  415 

three  tliousand  seven  liundred  and  sevent5^-four  chap. 

XXIX 

votes  for  Governor,  while  Reading,  his  Whig  ^J^^_^ 
opponent,  got  twenty-two  thousand  seven  hun-  i85i. 
dred  and  thirty-three. 

In  this  contest  Bio-ler  had  the  aid  of  the 
squatters,  who  were  becoming  a  power  in  the 
State.  He  was  democratic  in  his  manners — the 
"  hale  fellow "  of  all  he  met.  His  oj^ponent 
was  a  gentleman  of  more  genteel  bearing,  and 
owned  much  land.  Bigler  was  kind-hearted, 
unambitious,  landless,  and  always  mindful  of 
his  friends.  He  urged  economy  in  his  messages ; 
but  found  it  hard  to  prevent  an  office  being 
made  for  a  friend.  It  wa>  his  pet  project  to 
unite  the  Southern  and  Western  men  of  his 
party,  and  let  the  Free-soilers  shift  for  them- 
selves ;  but  it  is  not  in  that  direction  that  party 
cleavage  runs.  The  Southerners  scorned  the 
alliance.  They  were  "  high-toned,"  and  looked 
down  upon  a  Missourian  as  little  better  than  a 
man  from  Massachusetts.  The  Governor's  proj- 
ect would  not  work.  He  carried  water  on  both 
shoulders,  and  spilt  very  little  on  either  side. 
Though  a  man  of  positive  opinions,  and  l)old 
in  the  expression  of  them,  he  managed  to  make 
his  party  grow,  as  was  shown  at  the  Presiden- 
tial election  in  1852,  when  Franklin  Pierce  re-  1852. 
ceived  forty  thousand  four  hundred  and  twenty- 
nine  votes  in  California,  and  General  Scott  thir- 
ty-five thousand  seven  hundred  and  sixty.     In- 


416  THE    IIISTOEY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  deed,  he  was  a  devoted  partisan.  In  judging 
of  his  Administration  it  must  be  remembered 

1852.  that  he  fell  on  evil  times,  when  men  gambled 
a  great  deal,  had  not  their  families  with  them, 
were  rough,  money-making,  and  extravagant. 
At  his  first  nomination,  Broderick  was  against 
him ;  but  after  Weller  went  to  the  United 
States  Senate,  the  stone-cutter's  son  took  a 
diiferent  view  of  things,  and  brought  his  pow- 
erful aid  to  secure  him  the  nomination  for  a 
second  term. 

Successful    in    convention,   Bigler   was    suc- 

1853.  cessful  again  before  the  people,  who  (in  1853) 
re-elected  him  Governor  by  a  majority  of  four- 
teen liundred  and  sixty-seven  over  Waldo,  his 
Whig  opponent. 

Hitherto  tlie  Democracy,  quarj-el  as  nmch 
as  they  might  in  caucus  and  convention,  had 
managed  to  present  an  unbroken  front  on 
election-day.  Now  the  feud  was  too  hot  for 
concealment.  The  party  was  split  into  fac- 
tions— the  Northern  (Tammany)  wing  under 
the  lead  of  Broderick,  and  the  Southern,  or 
Chivalry,  under  Dr.  Gwiu.  Broderick  strug- 
1854  gled  in  the  Legislature  of  1854  to  bring  on 
the  election  of  United  States  Senator  at  once ; 
hence  his  party  was  known  at  the  time  as 
"  Election ists."  Gwin,  with  equal  vigor,  girded 
himself  to  stave  olf  the  election,  and  his  wini^r 
were  "■  Anti-Electionists."  Broderick  was  chair- 


QWIN    AND    BRODERICK.  417 

man  of  the  State  Central  Committee.     A  State  chap. 

XXIX 

convention  was  called  to  meet  at  Sacramento,  ^_^_J 
in  the  First  Baptist  Church,  on  the  18th  of  1854. 
July,  1854.  The  building  was  kept  closed 
until  a  few  minutes  of  the  time  ;  the  doors  were 
then  unlocked,  and  a  great  crowd  dashed  into 
the  little  building.  Broderick  called  the  ex- 
cited assembly  to  order,  and  asked  nominations 
for  a  temporary  president.  A  Gwin  man 
named  ex-Governor  McDougall,  and  a  Brod- 
erick man  almost  simultaneously  named  Ed- 
ward McGowan.  Broderick  recognized  the 
last-named,  and  put  the  vote.  A  storm  of 
ayes  and  noes  was  thundered  out,  and  McDou- 
gall and  McGowan  both  started  for  the  chair. 
They  reached  it  together,  and  both  proceeded 
with  business,  professing  to  ignore  each  other's 
presence.  There  were  double  sets  of  officers, 
double  speeches,  double  reports.  At  one  time  a 
collision  occurred,  and  a  pistol  was  discharged, 
probably  by  accident.  The  trustees  of  the 
church  gave  notice  that  they  could  not  occupy 
the  building  any  longer — it  was  not  calculated 
to  bear  the  strain  of  a  double  convention.  At 
last  a  double  motion  to  adjourn  was  carried, 
and  the  two  chairmen  left  the  church  arm-in- 
arm. 

Next  day  the  factions  met  in  separate  halls. 
The  Chivalry  nominated  J.  W.  Denver  and 
Philip  Herbert  for  Congress.     The  Tammany 

27 


418  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFOKNIA. 

CHAP,  wing  nominated  General  James  McDougall  and 

^     ■  James  Chiircliman  of  Nevada. 

1854.  A  ^^  eek  later  the  Whigs  had  a  State  conven- 
tion at  Sacramento,  which  was  marked  with  all 
the  harmony  peculiar  to  hopeless  minorities. 
J.  Neely  Johnson  presided.  Resolutions  were 
adopted,  invoking  the  j)eople  to  help  reduce 
taxes,  unshackle  commerce,  remove  restrictions 
on  trade,  restore  the  purity  of  the  ballot-box, 
and  make  secure  life,  liberty,  and  property. 
For  Congressmen,  they  nominated  Calhoun 
Benham  and  G.  W.  Bowie. 

At  the  election  the  Gwin  Congressmen  won, 
getting  some  thirty-seven  thousand  five  hundred 
votes ;  the  Broderick  candidates  had  little  over 
ten  thousand  ;  while  the  Whigs  had  thirty-five 
thousand. 

It  is  curious  to  note  here  the  future  of  some 
of  these  worthies.  McGowan,  Broderick's  chair- 
man, at  the  outbreak  of  the  great  rebellion,  pre- 
sented himself  in  Washington,  claiming  to  rep- 
resent Arizona,  and  threatening  to  take  that 
Territory  out  of  the  Union  if  Southern  claims 
were  not  respected.  Herbert,  while  in  Congress, 
murdered  an  Irish  waiter  at  AVillard's  Hotel,  and 
fell  into  disgrace,  even  with  his  party.  Denver 
became  a  Brigadier-General  of  Volunteers,  and 
fought  for  the  Union,  until  he  was  shelved 
quietly.  Calhoun  Benham  became  Buchanan's 
District  Attorney  for  California,  and  prophesied 


THE    GOVEENORSHIP.  419 

that  grass  would  srrow  in  the  streets  of  New  chap. 

-r  .  .  XXEX 

York  if  Lincoln  should  be  elected.     After  the  v_^_^ 
war  broke  out  he  was  arrested  by  General  Sum-   isso. 
ner,  in  company  with  Dr.  Gwin,  in   Panama 
harbor,  and  for  a  brief  time  occupied  an  apart- 
ment in  Fort  Lafayette. 

In  1855,  Bigler  was  renominated  for  a  third 
term  as  Governor.  Some  of  G win's  friends 
urged  Milton  S.  Latham,  but  they  were  a  minor- 
ity in  convention.  Bigler  obtained  forty-six 
thousand  two  hundred  and  twenty  votes,  the 
full  strength  of  his  party,  but  he  failed  of  re- 
election. The  Whigs  merged  into  the  new 
Know  Nothing  party,  which  gave  fifty-one  thou- 
sand one  hundred  and  fifty-seven  votes  to  J. 
Neely  Johnson,  and  made  him  Governor.  The 
politicians  of  the  day  said  that  Bigler,  in  de- 
spair of  carrying  any  longer  the  friendship  of 
Estill,  who  had  the  obnoxious  State  Prison  con- 
tract, threw  him  ofi*,  and  Estill,  changing  over 
to  the  Know  Nothings,  with  a  party  strong 
enough  to  turn  the  balance  of  power,  revenged 
himself  on  his  old  fi'iend.  But  the  governor- 
ship was  never  deemed  the  highest  political  prize 
in  California.  Far  above  it  shone  the  United 
States  senatorship,  and  the  attainment  of  that 
from  an  early  date  taxed  heavily  the  energies 
of  faction  and  the  purse  of  the  aspirant.  At 
the  first  session  of  the  Legislature  (held  at 
San  Jose,  December,  1849)  parties  were  not  or- 


420  THE   HISTOEY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  e^anized,  and  the  senatorial  election  was  soon 

XXIX. 

1849.  The  nominees  for  Senator  were  John  C.  Fre- 
mont, William  M.  Gwin,  Captain  H.  W.  Hal- 
leck  (since  General-in-Chief,)  T.  Butler  King, 
Thomas  J.  Henley,  Robert  Semple,  Colonel 
Jonathan  D.  Stevenson  (but  Edmund  Ran- 
dolph hastened  to  withdraw  the  colonel),  and 
Colonel  (now  General)  J.  W.  Geary.  On  the 
first  ballot  Fremont  had  twenty-nine  (which 
elected  him),  Gwin  twenty-two,  Halleck  four- 
teen, King  ten,  Henley  nine,  Geary  five,  Sem- 
ple three.  On  the  third  ballot  Gwin  had 
two  majority.  So  Fremont  and  Gwin  were 
California's  first  Senators.  Halleck's  highest 
vote  was  eio;hteen  on  the  third  ballot.  Fre- 
mont  drew  the  short  term,  and  his  seat  became 
vacant  on  the  3d  of  March,  1851. 

The  Legislature  desperately  essayed,  early  in 

1851.  1851,  to  elect  a  successor  to  Fremont,  but  all  in 
vain.  After  sundry  eftbrts  to  appoint  a  day 
for  a  joint  convention,  the  17th  of  February 
was  agreed  on.  When  twelve  o'clock  arrived 
the  Assembly  was  still  in  session,  engaged  in  a 
call  of  the  House,  and  the  Senate  took  a  recess 
of  ten  minutes,  to  give  the  ofiicers  time  to  pre- 
pare seats  for  the  other  branch  in  the  Senate 
chamber,  on  the  first  floor;  for,  seeing  how 
great  the  crowd  was,  it  was  deemed  imprudent 
to  meet  in  the  Assembly  chamber,  on  the  second 


THE   Ul^TED    STATES    SENATOKSHIP.  421 

floor.  When  order  was  called  in  tlie  Senate  chap. 
again,  Mr.  Broderick  stated  that  several  mem-  CJ-^J 
bers  of  the  Assembly  were  absent  from  their  i85i. 
seats  in  the  Assembly,  and  could  not  be  found. 
He  said,  moreover,  that  there  was  a  rumor  on 
the  street  that  one  member  had  been  drugged 
the  night  before,  to  prevent  his  voting  for  a 
Senator.  He  moved  to  postpone  the  joint  con. 
vention,  and,  though  while  the  vote  was  being- 
taken  the  Assembly  was  at  the  door,  the  vote  was 
carried — ayes  nine,  noes  six;  and  the  astounded 
Assembly  was  in  a  quandary,  with  a  joint  con- 
vention on  its  hands,  and  no  Senate  to  help  ad- 
journ it.  However,  the  joint  convention  met 
soon  after,  and  on  the  first  ballot  forty-nine 
votes  were  cast.  Twenty-five  were  necessary  to 
a  choice,  and  no  one  had  near  that  number. 
Fremont  had  eight ;  Heydenfeldt,  whose  broth- 
er was  a  Whio;  member  of  the  State  Senate, 
had  sixteen.  King  had  fifteen,  G-eary  four, 
Weller  four.  Collier  two.  Seven  days  were  spent 
in  inefi^ectual  efforts  to  elect.  On  the  sixty-sixth 
ballot  Fremont  had  eleven.  King  nineteen, 
Heydenfeldt  fifteen,  Geary  one,  and  George  B. 
Tingley  two.  On  the  27th  of  February  the 
one  hundred  and  forty-first  ballot  was  taken, 
when  Fremont  had  fourteen,  Kiuc:  eis^hteen, 
Heydenfeldt  fifteen,  Bennet  one.  Heydenfeldt 
was  now  withdrawn,  and  John  B.  Weller  nom- 
inated.    Next  day  the  one  hundred  and  forty- 


422  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  second  ballot  was  taken,  resulting  as  follows : 
^_^^_^  Fremont  nine,  King  twenty,  Weller  eighteen, 
1852.  Geary  one.  Then,  satisfied  they  could  never 
agree,  the  joint  convention  adjourned  to  Janu- 
ary 1st,  1852.  The  letter-writers  of  that  day 
represent  San  Jose  as  black  with  the  lobb}^, 
and  the  candidates  giving  suppers  to  their 
friends  with  the  most  profuse  hospitality. 

The  Legislature  of  1852  met  at  Vallejo,  but 
findina:  no  accommodations  for  remainino-,  re- 
moved  to  Sacramento.  By  this  time  the  Demo- 
cratic party,  which  was  largely  in  the  majority, 
had  perfectly  organized.  The  seventy-two  Dem- 
ocrats went  into  caucus,  and  on  the  first  bal- 
lot Weller  had  twenty-one  votes,  Broderick  six- 
teen. The  joint  convention,  however,  did  not 
wait  on  caucus.  At  its  first  ballotins^  Weller 
had  twenty-three,  G-.  B.  Tiugley  sixteen,  Brod- 
erick fifteen,  William  Smith  nine,  Alexander 
Anderson  nine,  W.  McLane  seven,  and  ten  scat- 
tering. Caucus  tried  it  again,  and  on  the  fifth 
ballot  Weller  had  two  majority  over  Broderick. 
Next  day,  in  joint  convention,  John  B.  Weller 
had  seventy-one,  P.  B.  Reading  seventeen.  So 
Weller  was  elected  the  successor  of  John  C. 
Fremont  in  the  United  States  Senate. 

In  1853  there  was  rest  from  Senator-making ; 

1854.   but  in  1854  the  campaign  reopened.     Gwin's 

term  of  office  was  not  to  expire  until  March  4th, 

1855.     But   Broderick  doubted   if  he  would 


THE    UNITED    STATES    SENATOESHIP.  423 

soon  aojain  2:et  so  favorable  a  Lesfislature,  and  chap. 

.  .  .         XXIX 

determined  to  bring  on  an  election.  The  Whigs  ._^ 
having  nothing  to  lose  by  delay,  united  with  the  1854. 
Gwin  faction  in  the  employment  of  every  means 
to  postpone  the  election.  At  one  time  Broder- 
ick  needed  but  a  single  vote  more  to  carry  his 
point  and  secure  his  election.  The  Legislature 
adjourned  mid-session  from  Benicia  to  Sacra- 
mento— it  was  said  to  win  a  Sacramento  vote — 
but  the  ruse  was  unsuccessful,  and  the  election 
could  not  be  ordered.  Hence  the  bitterness 
and  obstinacy  with  which  the  factions  struggled 
for  the  advantaoje  in  the  State  Convention  of 
the  following^  fall. 

In  1855,  Gwin  started  with  a  majority  in  the  1855. 
Legislature,  but  not  enough  to  control  the  elec- 
tion. They  balloted  fifty  times,  and  from  the 
I7th  of  January  to  the  16th  of  February.  On 
the  first  ballot  Gwin  had  forty-two,  Broderick 
twelve,  Philip  L.  Edwards  thirty-six,  Joseph 
W.  McCorlde  fourteen,  James  A.  McDougall 
two,  Frederick  Billings  one,  Solomon  Heyden- 
feldt  one,  Frank  Soule  one,  and  R.  T.  Sprague 
one.  On  the  fiftieth  ballot,  Broderick  had 
twelve,  Gwin  forty -one,  Edwards  thirty -six, 
Roman  fifteen ;  and  then  the  joint  convention 
adjourned  siiie  die,  and  from  the  4th  of  March 
of  that  year  there  was  a  vacancy  in  the  State's 
senatorial  representation  at  Washington.  To 
prevent  accidents  in  case  the  next  Legislature 


424  THE   inSTORT   OF   CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  should  be  of  some  other  than  the  Democratic 

XXIX 

,_^  party,  a  law  was  enacted,  requiring  all  regular 

1855.  elections  for  United  States  Senator  to  be  held 
after  the  1st  of  January  next  preceding  the 
commencement  of  the  senatorial  term — a  pre- 
caution necessary  to  keep  Weller's  seat  open 
for  a  Democrat. 

Neely  Johnson  was  inaugurated  Governor  in 

1856.  January,  1856.  He  was  supported  by  a  Know 
Nothing  Legislature,  which  came  within  one 
vote  of  electing  Henry  S.  Foote,  formerly  of 
Mississippi  (and  since  then  a  member  of  the 
Confederate  Senate  in  Richmond),  but  at  that 
time  a  resident  of  California.  Wilson  Flint, 
one  of  the  senators,  thou2:h  a  Know  Nothiua:, 
sturdily  refused  to  vote  for  Foote,  believing 
that  he  was  a  pro-slavery  man  and  a  carpet- 
bag politician,  whose  sole  errand  to  the  State 
was  to  gain  this  prize.  Great  was  the  wrath 
of  the  party,  but  Flint  was  stubborn,  and  with- 
out his  vote  no  progress  could  be  made.  His 
life  was  threatened,  but  his  fi'iends  guarded 
well  his  ways,  and  no  hai-m  came  to  him. 
Foote's  party  competitor  was  Henry  A.  Crabb, 
who  afterwards  withdrew  in  favor  of  W.  J. 
Ferguson,  of  Sacramento.  The  party  lacking 
discipline,  and  its  members  distrusting  its  lease 
of  power,  each  faction  felt  that  compromises 
were  useless,  and  present  success  all  that  was 
worth  struggling  for.     The  Democrats  did  not 


GENERAL   ELECTION   RESULT8.  425 

doubt  that  next  year  tliey  would  have  the  Legis-  chap. 
lature  again,  and  as  then  Weller's  term  as  well  s_^_j 
as  Gwin's  would  be  out,  there  would  be  a  place  1856. 
for  each  faction.     So  they  harmonized  iji  view 
of  the  spoils,  and  with  a  very  little  Know  Noth- 
ing aid,  got  a  resolution  through  the  Senate, 
declaring  it  inexpedient  and  contrary  to  the 
wishes  of  the  people  to  fill  the  existing  vacancy, 
and  postponed   all   action   on  the   subject   to 
January  1st,  1857.     The  two.  Houses  did  not 
go  into  joint  convention. 

The  Presidential  election  came  on  that  fall. 
James  Buchanan  obtained  the  electoral  vote  of 
the  State.  His  popular  vote  was  fifty-three 
thousand  three  hundred  and  sixty-five.  Mil- 
lard Filhnore,  the  American  candidate,  received 
thirty-six  thousand  one  hundred  and  sixty-five 
votes;  and  Fremont,  who  now  claimed  a  resi-. 
dence  in  New  York,  from  the  State  which  de- 
lighted almost  unanimously  to  make  him  her 
first  Senator,  received  twenty  thousand  six  hun 
dred  and  ninety-three. 

The  candidates  for  Congress  that  year  were 
Joseph  McKibben  and  Charles  Scott  (Demo- 
crats), who  were  elected ;  Whitman  and  Dibble, 
Americans,  and  Ira  P.  Rankin  and  Mr.  Turner, 
Republicans,  who  ran  far  enough  ahead  of  Fre- 
mont to  mark  the  unpopularity  of  the  young 
Pathfinder  in  the  resfion  of  which  he  was  the 

o 

reputed  conqueror. 


426  THE   HISTOET   OF    CALITOllNIA. 

CHAP.       San  Francisco  liad  come  by  cleo:rees  to  stand 

XXIX  •  •  .   . 

^_^  at  variance  with  the  State  on  politics.  In  1851, 
1851-  it  gave  a  majority  to  the  Whig  nominee  for 
Governor.  In  1853,  Bigler  had  but  five  major- 
ity there  over  Waldo.  In  1854,  it  gave  a  plu- 
rality for  the  Whig  Congressmen,  and  to  the 
Broderick  wing  from  three  hundred  and  fifty 
to  four  hundred  votes  more  than  to  the  Gwin 
faction.  In  1855,  the  united  Democracy  got 
nearly  two  thousand  majority  over  the  Know 
Nothings.  In  1856,  it  gave  Buchanan  a  plu- 
rality, but  to  Fremont  more  than  three  to  one 
for  Fillmore.  San  Francisco,  generally,  tended 
to  the  side  of  the  minority. 

In  Sacramento  the  Whigs  were  in  the  ma- 
jority in  1852,  1853,  and  1854;  the  Know 
Nothings  in  1855  ;  and  the  Democrats  in  1856. 
As  between  Broderick  and  Gwin  in  1854,  it 
inclined  to  the  former.  The  strono-holds  of  the 
Chivalry  were  in  the  mining  region. 

But  the  real  "rulino;  classes  "  do  not  come  to 
light  in  these  statistics.  The  dregs  of  society 
— swindlers,  thieves,  and  gamblers — dictated 
to  the  party  dictators,  and  ruled  the  State 
with  a  tyranny  that  conventions  dare  not  med- 
dle with.  The  party  in  power  had  to  bear 
the  odium  of  the  Avi^etched  condition  of  affairs ; 
probably  it  would  have  ])cen  all  the  same 
whether  Whigs  or  Democrats,  Tauimanyites  or 
"  Chivs "    occupied  the    public   places.      The 


THE   REAL   RULERS.  427 

better   classes   liad  despised   politics,  and  the  chap. 
worst   classes   picked  up  the    reins  and  were  ^_^ 
driving  fast  to  ruin.     Good  men,  who  were  ele-    isss- 
vated  to  power  by  parties  that  they  could  not       "*  ' 
think  of  controlling,  were  ashamed,  disgusted, 
mortified  by  the  power  that  used  them.     The 
judiciary  fell  into  disrepute.      The  course  of 
regular  justice  was  obstructed.     Criminals  en- 
joyed an  alarming  immunity  from  punishment. 
Violence    ruled    in    city  and   country.     Then 
Judge  Lynch  crowded  the  slow  judge  (whom 
the  people  elected)  off  the  bench.     The  legal 
executioner    could   not  learn  his  business  for 
lack  of  practice ;    yet  in  many  a   quiet  nook 
among  the  mountains,  the  thief  or  murderer,  or 
the  party  pronounced  to  be  such  after  a  hurried 
trial,  was  hung  by  the  neck  to  the  limb  of  a 
tree — the  trial  be2:innino:  in  the  mornina;,  the 
hanging  over  before  noon  ! 

Here  are  some  examples  which  occurred  long 
after  the  organization  of  the  courts  was  com- 
pleted for  every  settled  section  of  the  State: 
Two  Mexican  horse-thieves  were  lynched  near 
Martinez  in  April,  1853.  A  bar-keeper  was,  in 
the  same  month,  hung  on  the  very  day  that  he 
shot  a  citizen  of  Whiskey  Creek,  near  Shasta. 
In  July,  a  Mexican  was  hung  at  Jackson  for 
horse-stealing.  At  Volcano,  in  December,  1854, 
one  Macy  stabbed  an  old  man.  In  less  than 
half  an  hour  the  assassin  was  swinging  lifeless 


428  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFOEXIA. 

CHAP.  — Lavino;  been  executed  by  the  mob.  The  same 

XXIX 

^_^  montli,  one  Johnson  stabbed  a  man  named 
1853-  Montgomery,  at  Iowa  Hill ;  he  attempted  to 
^^^^-  escape,  but  was  captured,  and  was  hung  the 
next  day.  As  the  wounded  man  gave  signs  of 
recovery  afterwards,  a  revulsion  in  the  public 
sentiment  took  place,  and  a  suspicion  got  out 
that  perhaps  the  avengers  had  been  in  too 
much  haste.  Three  men,  convicted  of  murder, 
la}^  in  jail  together  at  Los  Angeles,  under  sen- 
tence of  death.  An  order  went  do^vn  from  the 
Supreme  Court  granting  a  stay  of  proceedings 
in  the  cases  of  Brown  and  Lee,  leavino;  Alvitre 
to  his  fate.  The  people  insisted  that  Brown 
should  suffer  death  the  same  day  with  Alvitre. 
The  mayor  of  the  city  made  a  speech,  urging 
the  justice  of  that  course.  On  the  12th  of  Jan- 
uary, 1855,  Alvitre  was  executed  according  to 
law.  The  mayor  resigned  his  office  and  joined 
the  mob,  which  demanded  Brown  from  the  sher- 
iff. They  took  Brown  forcibly  out  of  the  jail 
and  hung  him,  in  spite  of  the  Supreme  Court,  by 
the  side  of  his  fellow  in  crime.  On  the  18th 
of  the  same  month,  Mr.  Heslep,  the  acting  treas- 
urer of  Tuolumne  County,  was  murdered.  The 
supposed  murderer  was  caught  and  lynched  on 
the  19th.  Three  cattle-thieves  were  caj^tured 
one  Sunday  of  February,  1855,  in  Contra  Costa 
County,  and  hung  by  the  mob  on  the  Monday 
foUoAvini-'.     The   same  month,  some   unknown 


LYNCH   LAW.  429 

persons  took  a  liorse-tliief  out  of  tlie  Oakland  chap. 

.    •  •  •  •  •  XXIX 

jail,  carried  liim  to  Clinton  Bridge,  and  liung  ^^^^ 
him  to  the  bough  of  a  tree.  In  August,  1855,  i855. 
six  Americans  were  murdered  by  a  gang  of 
Mexicans,  not  far  from  Jackson,  in  Amador 
County.  The  people  turned  out  and  caught 
thirty-six  of  the  Mexicans.  It  was  proposed  to 
hang  them  together.  But  that  was  thought 
too  irresponsible  a  method.  So  a  jury  was  se- 
lected, several  of  the  captives  tried,  and  three 
of  them  liuno:  on  the  same  tree  too^ether. 

Robbers  infested  the  highways,  of  the  South- 
ern counties  especially.  There  is  a  long  chap- 
ter of  violence  that  may  remain  unwritten, 
where  the  criminals  were  not  cau2:ht.  Some- 
times  these  cases  created  an  excitement  far 
beyond  the  immediate  vicinity  where  the  crime 
was  committed.  In  November,  1855,  Isaac  B. 
Wall,  ex-Speaker  of  Assembly,  and  Collector  of 
Monterey,  and  T.  S.  Williamson,  a  county  offi- 
cer of  Monterey,  when  on  the  road  between 
their  home  and  San  Luis  Obispo,  were  assas- 
sinated. The  same  month,  William  H.  Richard- 
son, United  States  Marshal,  was  shot  fatally  by 
Charles  Cora  on  Clay  Street  in  San  Francisco, 
a  few  doors  below  Montgomery  Street,  by  day- 
light.    Cora  was  arrested. 

There  was  no  assurance  that  conviction  would 
follow  arrest,  no  matter  how  many  witnesses. 
The  county  jails  were  seldom  veiy  secure  at  the 


430  THE   HISTORY   OF   CALIFOElSriA. 

CHAP,  best,  even  if  there   had   not   been   conniving 
f^  sheriffs.      The  State's  Prison  at  San  Queutin 

1854.  was  a  sieve.  In  December,  1854,  thirty  con- 
victs escaped  from  it  on  the  same  day. 

The   sudden   rise  of  the  Know  Nothing  or 

1855.  American  party  into  power  was  not  owing  so 
much  to  any  outburst  of  exclusively  American 
feeling  as  to  the  determination  to  adopt  any 
thing  new,  with  the  hope  that  an  unhackneyed 
party  and  fresh  men  might  dam  the  flood  that 
had  swept  away  the  social  reputation  of  the 
State,  and  threatened  to  wreck  its  financial 
character.  That  party's  equally  sudden  col- 
lapse was  due  to  the  discovery  that  unprinci- 
pled persons  had  got  control  of  that  organiza- 
tion too,  and  were  handling  it  as  all  others  had 
been. 

Things  came  at  last  to  a  pitch  beyond  en- 
durance. There  were  some  good  men  in  office, 
but  so  hampered  and  hedged  that  they  might 
as  well  have  been  out ;  there  were  some  good 
judges  on  the  bench,  but  generally  they  were 
powerless  to  punish  crime  or  protect  innocence 
against  the  tide  of  false  swearing  that  set  in  the 
hour  it  was  wanted  to  shield  criminals  or  con- 
vict the  guiltless.  There  were  bad  men  in 
office,  too,  Avho  had  things  very  much  their  own 
way:  corrupt  judges,  who  fingered  bribes,  as 
the  public  believed ;  sheriffs,  and  constables, 
and  jailers,  to  whom  detected  criminals  ran  for 


DESPERATE    SOCIAL    CONDITION".  431 

refuge.   San  Franciscans,  after  dark,  instinctively  chap. 
avoided  a  crowd ;  and  if  they  had  occasion  to  ._^ 
go  into  the  sandy  or  chaparal-covered  suburbs    1855. 
after  nightfall,  they  felt   that  they  neglected 
their  duty  to  themselves  and  their  families  un- 
less they  took  a  revolver. 

Ballot-box  stuffing  was  as  regular  as  the  ar- 
rival of  election-day.  Voters  felt  it  a  farce  to 
spend  their  time  at  the  polls,  when  rowdies, 
gamblers,  state-prison  convicts,  and  "  Sydney 
ducks "  could,  in  ten  minutes  after  the  polls 
were  closed,  make  any  majority  for  their  side 
that  was  wanted.  It  was  a  condition  of  aifairs 
that  American  citizens  could  not  long  endure. 


432  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIiORNIA. 


CHAPTEE  XXX. 

THE   VIGILANCE   COMMITTEE  OF  1856. 

CHAP.       The  explosion  occurred  in  1856,  at  San  Fran- 

XXX 

__^_.  cisco,  but  the  whole  State  felt  the  shock.  A 
1856.  correspondent  of  the  Bulletin^  signing  himself 
^  "A  Purifier,"  had  spoken  of  one  Bagley,  who 
had  been  indicted  for  attempting  the  life  of 
James  P.  Casey,  as  an  objectionable  appointee 
to  the  Custom-House,  which  Collector  Latham 
was  busily  reforminc'.  James  King,  in  an  edi- 
torial, on  the  14th  ui'  May,  used  the  following 
language : — 

"  It  does  not  matter  how  bad  a  man  Casey 
had  been,  nor  how  much  benefit  it  might  be  to 
the  public  to  have  him  out  of  the  way ;  we  can- 
not accord  to  any  one  citizen  the  right  to  kill 
him,  or  even  beat  him,  without  justifiable,  per- 
sonal provocation.  The  fact  that  Casey  has 
been  the  inmate  of  Sinsf  Sino-  Prison  is  no  of- 
fence  against  the  laws  of  this  State ;  nor  is  the 
fact  of  his  having  stuffed  himself  through  the 
ballot-box  as  elected  to  the  Board  of  Super- 
visors from  a  district  where  it  is  said  he  was 
not  even  a  candidate,  any  justification  for  Mr, 


JAMES   KING    AND    CASEY.  433 

Bagley  to  slioot  Casey,  however  richly  the  lat-  chap. 
ter  may  deserve  to  have  his  neck  stretched  for  ,1,^_ 
such  a  fraud  on  the  people."  1850. 

The  Bulletin  was  issued  about  three  o'clock  ^^' 
in  the  afternoon.  At  four  o'clock,  Supervisor 
Casey,  the  subject  of  the  above  "  disparaging 
allusion,"  entered  the  editorial  room  of  the  Bul- 
letin^ which  was  on  the  second  story  of  a  build- 
ing on  Merchant  Street,  near  Montgomery. 
King  was  seated  at  his  desk.  Casey  asked  him 
what  he  meant  by  the  article  in  the  Bulletin 
just  issued;  King  asked  hhn  to  what  article  he 
referred. 

"  To  that,"  said  Casey,  "  which  says  that  I 
was  formerly  an  inmate  of  Sing  Sing  Prison." 

"  Is  not  that  true  ?"  asked  King. 

"  That  is  not  the  question,"  replied  Casey ;  "  I 
don't  wish  my  past  acts  raised  up ;  on  that  I  am     • 
sensitive." 

"  Are  you  done  V  asked  King.  "  There's  the 
door — go  !     Never  show  your  face  here  again." 

Casey  moved  off  immediately.  Passing  out 
of  the  door,  he  said,  "  I'll  say  in  my  paper  what 
I  please ;" — he  was  editor  of  a  weekly  sheet — 
the  Sunday  Times. 

"You  have  a  perfect  right  to  do  as  you 
please,"  answered  King ;  "  I'll  never  notice  your 
paper."   Casey,  without  another  word,  departed. 

King  left  his  office  soon  after  five  o'clock,  as 
usual,  to  go  to  his  dinner.     He  passed  up  Mer- 

28 


434  THE   HISTORY   OF    OALrFORIJTA. 

CHAP,  chant  Street,  up  Montgomery  to  Washington 
'^'^^'   Street,  and  began  to  cross  it  to  the  west  side  of 
185G.    Montgomery.      Casey,  who   was  on  the  west 
^*^"    side  of  Montgomery  Street,  waiting,  threw  off 
his  cloak,  and  presenting  a  revolver  when  they 
were  a  few  feet  apart,  and  saying,  "  Come  on," 
or  something  to  that  effect,  fired.     The  shot 
entered  King's  left  breast  and  passed  out  un- 
der the  shoulder-blade.      King  staggered  into 
the  Pacific  Express  Company's  oflice,  on  the 
northwest  corner  of  Washington  and  Montgom- 
ery Streets.      The  wound  bled  freely.     He  was 
got  to   bed,  and  slept   somewhat  during   the 
night. 

Casey,  so  soon  as  he  had  fired,  was  hurried 
off  to  the  station-house  by  his  friends,  and 
thence  to  the  jail  on  Broadway,  as  to  a  place  of 
refuge. 

Fearful  of  an  attack  upon  the  jail,  the  mili- 
tary were  ordered  out,  and  they  promptly  re- 
sponded. A  hundred  of  them,  more  or  less, 
took  their  position  on  the  roof,  ready  to  fire  on 
tlie  crowd  in  case  of  emergency.  At  half-past 
six  p.  M.,  Mayor  Van  Ness  attempted  from  the 
front  of  the  jail  to  address  the  crowd.  He  ad- 
vised them  to  disperse  quietly — "  the  prisoner 
was  safe  " — "  it  was  best  to  let  the  law  take  its 
course  and  justice  be  done.''  He  was  inter- 
rupted with  cries  of  "Where  is  the  law  in 
Cora's  case  V — "  There  is  too  much  law  and  too 


JAarES   KIKG   SHOT   BY   CASEY.  435 

little  iustice  in  California." — "  Down  witli  sucli  chap, 

.  .  .  XXX 

justice  !"  The  Mayor,  seeing  his  efforts  useless,  1_^,_^ 
retired.  The  crowd  tarried  about  the  jail  till  a  isoij. 
late  hour,  and  then  dispersed. 

But  all  night  there  was  a  great  assemblage 
before  the  Pacific  Express  Company's  office, 
waiting  to  learn  the  fate  of  Mr.  King.  E-opes 
were  placed  across  the  street  to  prevent  the 
friendly  crowd  from  entering  the  building  and 
disturbing  the  wounded  man's  repose. 

The  old  Vigilance  Committee  of  1851  met 
during  the  evening,  but  deferred  definite  action 
until  the  next  day. 

That  next  day  was  one  of  profound  excite-  Mayis. 
ment  in  San  Francisco.  The  Herald  spoke  of 
the  attempted  assassination  as  "  an  affray  be- 
tween James  P.  Casey  and  James  King,  of 
"William."  "Motives  of  delicacy,  needless  to 
explain,  force  us  to  abstain  from  commenting 
on  this  affair,"  said  the  editor.  He  confessed 
that  in  times  past  he  had  sustained  the  Vigil- 
ance Committee,  but  now  "justice  was  regular- 
ly administered,"  and  there  existed  "  no  neces- 
sity for  such  an  association." 

The  Sun  and  the  Glohe  abstained  from  edi- 
torial comments.  The  Chronicle  called  for  jus- 
tice. "  Let  reason  and  law — nay,  mahe  reason 
and  law  vindicate  the  outraged  laws  and  peace 
of  societ}^"  It  almost  suggested,  but  did  not 
quite,  that  the  people  assume  the  functions  that 


436  THE   HISTOEY    OF   CALIFOENIA. 

CHAP,  the  officers  of  tlie  courts  had  so  lono:  neglected 

XXX  . 

^__^  to  employ.  The  Alta  spoke  out  decidedly  that 
185G.  the  time  to  stop  such  outrages  had  come.  The 
Bulletin  appeared  that  eveuing  with  a  blank 
column  in  place  of  a  leader.  It  narrated  the 
story  of  the  assassination  minutely,  and  its  cor- 
respondence teemed  with  calls  for  instant  popu- 
lar organization.  On  Friday  it  received  over  a 
hundred  letters,  most  of  which  advocated  speedy 
action  by  a  Vigilance  Committee.  The  Pacijic 
(a  religious  paper  edited  by  a  Congregational 
clergyman)  said,  "Casey  ought  to  be  hung.  Be- 
lieve it  who  will,"  that,  left  to  the  courts,  he  will 
be ;  "  we  do  not."  Said  the  Christian  Advocate 
(the  Methodist  organ),  "  Providence  is  a  farce 
and  justice  a  lie,  or  the  doom  of  the  ungodly  in 
this  cit}^  is  at  hand."  The  other  papers  spoke 
freely,  and  nearly  to  the  same  point. 

If  the  newspapers  reflected  the  public  senti- 
ment— and  probably  nowhere  else  in  the  world 
are  the  papers  more  generally  read,  or  do  they 
more  truly  speak  for  the  whole  people — ^there 
was  a  very  strong  majority  demanding  the  for- 
mation of  a  vigilance  committee,  and  thorough 
radical  work  by  it.  The  Globe  spoke  out,  like 
most  of  the  other  j)apers,  on  the  second  day. 
The  Herald  consistently  opposed  the  Vigilance 
Committee  ;  but  its  course  cost  it  dear.  It  had 
been  the  leading  commei'cial  and  news  journal 
of  the  coast.     The  day  that  "motives  of  deli- 


PERILOUS    TIMES    FOR   NEWSPAPERS.  4o7 

cacv"  led  it  to  treat  of  the  attempted  assassina-  chap. 

^  •  .  XXX 

tion  of  King  as  "  an  affray,"  subscribers  to  the  1.^ 
number  of  two  hundred  and  twelve  stopped  185G. 
their  paper.  Two  hundred  and  fifty  importers, 
merchants,  and  jobbers  notified  the  auctioneers, 
who  had,  as  a  body,  used  it  as  their  advertising 
medium,  that  they  should  not  longer  subscribe 
for  it.  So  the  auctioneers  took  their  advertis- 
ing over  to  the  Alta,  which  waxed  strong  at 
once  on  the  patronage ;  for  in  those  days  the 
paper  that  had  the  auctioneers'  advertisements 
was  necessarily  the  leading  commercial  organ. 
The  Herald  shrank  in  its  dimensions  next  morn- 
ing, and  never  regained  its  former  prestige. 
The  Sun  soon  ranged  itself  with  the  Herald  in 
the  opposition.  It  was  a  political  sheet,  of 
Democratic  faith — for  Bigler  and  Buchanan, 
and  against  Broderick.  It  was  temperate  but 
firm  in  its  opposition,  and  made  light  of  its 
lack  of  support — presenting,  some  days,  under 
regular  advertising  heads,  whole  or  half  col- 
umns of  blanks,  as  much  as  to  say, "  We  I'eserve 
vacant  and  in  order  the  space  that  our  patrons 
will  be  sure  to  want  so  soon  as  this  little  flurry 
is  over." 

But  it  was  no  "  little  flurry."  The  Vigilance 
Committee — to  this  day  it  is  hard  to  say  how 
it  started  and  was  organized — was  in  session 
from  nine  in  the  morning  until  a  late  hour  in 
the  evening   of  the  15th.     It  was   said,  that 


43n  the  histoky  of  California. 

CHAP,  within  thirty  hours  after  King  was  shot,  they 
J_^  had  twenty-five  hundred  names  enrolled  on 
1856.  their  books,  of  men  who  pledged  themselves  to 
work  together  for  the  purging  of  the  city  of  its 
late  "  ruling  classes,"  the  gamblers,  ballot-box 
stuffers,  jury  packers,  foreign  convicts,  swindlers, 
thieves  high  and  low,  and  of  villains  generally. 
Hundreds  were  waiting  their  turn,  all  day,  to 
register  themselves. 
Mayi8.  The  meetings  of  the  committee  were  held 
with  closed  doors.  The  secrecy  of  its  opera- 
tions terrified  the  guilty,  and  large  numbers  of 
suspicious  characters  departed  up  the  river,  or 
scattered  over  the  stage  routes  into  the  country. 
Some  bolder  ones  attempted  to  get  inside  of 
the  organization.  Perhaps  some  of  these  suc- 
ceeded; but  if  they  did,  they  did  not  tarry 
long,  for  "  the  all-seeing  eye"  that  was  printed 
on  the  committee's  official  paper  looked  inside 
as  well  as  out  of  the  committee. 

Mayor  Van  Ness  telegraphed  to  the  Governor 
that  his  presence  was  required.  His  Excellency 
hastened  down  from  Sacramento,  had  an  inter- 
view with  leading  citizens  and  the  city  authori- 
ties, and  by  his  advice  Sherifl:'  Scannell  admit- 
ted some  twenty  persons,  as  a  delegation  of 
the  Vigilance  Committee,  into  the  jail,  to  keep 
guard  over  Casey. 

King  still  lingered ;  sometimes  improving  a 
little ;  then  again  giving  signs  that  his  wound 


THE    PULPIT   ON    THE   VIGILANCE   COMSUTTEE.    439 

was  fatal.     Bulletins  were  posted   about  tlie  chap. 
town,  detailinsr  liis  condition,  wliich  were  con- 
suited  by  crowds.  1856. 

Sunday  was  a  day  of  gloom  and  sadness,  ^^y'^^- 
The  churches  were  perhaps  more  thronged  than 
usual.  The  Eev.  Mr.  Lacy  (Congregational- 
ist),  according  to  previous  announcement,  took 
for  his  subject,  Zaw  and  Heligion.  The  Rev. 
Mr.  Cutler  (Unitarian)  dwelt  on  the  exciting 
topics  of  the  week.  The  Rev.  Mr.  Brierly,  at 
the  Baptist  church,  discussed  the  matter  that 
engrossed  all  thoughts.  Indeed,  the  Protestant 
pulpit  throughout  the  State  very  generally 
availed  itself  of  the  gi'eat  overshadowing  event, 
to  make  research  for  the  principles  that  lie  at 
the  base  of  all  substantial  human  governments. 
The  Rev.  J.  A.  Benton  (Congregationalist),  at 
Sacramento,  said :  "  A  people  can  be  justified 
in  recalling  delegated  power  and  resuming  its 
exercise" — guarding  his  statement  with  the 
further  remark,  that  "  like  every  such  remedy 
and  resort,  it  must  be  reserved  for  rare  oc- 
casions and  the  most  trying  emergencies." 

But  while,  in  San  Francisco,  a  portion  of  the 
community  were  listening  with  the  closest  at- 
tention to  sermons  on  what  filled  every  man's 
tlioughts,  a  larger  portion  were  in  the  streets. 
The  members  of  the  A-^igilance  Committee,  or  so 
many  of  them  as  had  received  the  hasty  notice, 
issuing  from  their  places  of  rendezvous,  armed 


440  THE    HISTORY    OF   CALITOR:?^!^. 

CHAP,  with  muskets,  rifles,  or  revolvers,  and  ncfiseless, 
■   except  as  their  tramp  rang  out  from  the  pave- 

185G.  ment,  marched  through  the  most  public 
thoroughfares  to  the  jail  on  Broadway.  There 
were  tweuty-fcur  companies  represented.  Per- 
haps half  the  complement  of  each  (which  was 
one  hundred)  were  in  the  procession. 

Soon  a  brass  cannon  was  placed  in  the  street, 
facing  the  jail  door,  and  the  roofs  of  the  neigh- 
borins;  houses  were  covered  with  riflemen. 
A  committee  from  this  armed  and  noiseless 
crowd  waited  upon  Sberiflf  Scannell,  and  de- 
manded the  surrender  of  Casey.  With  scarcely 
a  minute's  parley  the  jail  door  w^as  thrown 
open.  Casey  at  first  remonstrated,  and  ex- 
pressed some  indignation  that  "  Scannell  too 
had  deserted "  him.  But  he  was  shown  how 
vain  opposition  would  be.  Casey  drew  a  con- 
cealed knife,  and  said  that  no  j^erson  should 
put  irons  on  his  limbs.  He  was  told  that  the 
committee  would  have  him  dead  or  alive. 
Thereupon  he  submitted  to  be  handcuffed,  and 
was  taken  to  a  carriage,  which,  under  guard  of 
two  hundred  men,  was  driven  to  the  commit- 
tee's head-quarters  in  Sacramento  Street. 

After  Casey  had  been  driven  off,  the  special 
committee  returned  to  the  jail,  and  demanded 
Cora,  the  murderer  of  Marshal  Richardson. 
There  was  a  little  delay  about  this,  but  in  about 
an  hour  he  too  was  produced,  and  put  in  a  close 


jAJiEs  king's  death.  441 

carriao'e,  whicli  three  members  of  the  committee  chap. 

.  .  XXX 

entered.     Two  other  carriages,  filled  with  mem-  ^l..^^_J^ 
bers,  followed,  and,  with  a  company  of  guards    1856. 
marching   on    either   side,  they   proceeded   to    ^•' 
head-quarters.     All  this  was  done  so  quietly 
that  the  people  in  the  churches  knew  nothing 
of  it  until  services  ended. 

A  little  after  noon  of  the  20th  of  May,  six 
days  after  he  w^as  shot,  James  King,  of  Wil- 
liam, died.  It  was  known  instantly  upon  the 
street,  and  the  tolling  of  nearly  all  the  bells 
conveyed  the  intelligence  to  every  part  of  the 
city.  By  telegraph  the  event  was  known  be- 
fore nio-ht  throuo:hout  the  State.  Merchants 
closed  their  stores,  mechanics  their  shoj^s ;  la- 
borers stopped  work  at  once.  Very  soon  Mont- 
gomery Street  was  lined  with  crape.  Men  ap- 
peared with  crape  on  their  arms  and  on  their 
hats.  The  bell-handles  of  many  houses  were 
trimmed  with  crape.  A  stranger  would  have 
thought  a  plague  was  raging. 

There  was  a  general  hastening  of  men  to  the 
Vigilance  Committee  rooms.  The  expectation 
was  prevalent  that  Casey  w'ould  not  many  min- 
utes outlive  his  victim.  But  they  learned  that 
the  assassin  was  on  trial,  which  would  be  calmly 
conducted,  and  that  no  step  would  be  rashly 
taken. 

From  five  o'clock  until  late  in  the  evening. 
King's  body  lay  in  state  in  a  room  on  Mont- 


442  THE   HISTOEY   OF    CAUFORNIA. 

CHAP,  gomery  Block,  and  tlie  tlirong  seeking  admit- 
,_^_,  tance  to  where  it  lay  stretched  down  tlie  side- 
1856.   walks  of  Montgomery  Street  for  two  blocks. 
Not  in  San  Francisco  alone,  bnt  in  many  other 
places  throughout  the  State,  the  emblems  of 
sorrow  were  assumed  by  the  people,  and  the 
bells  tolled  as  if  a  public  calamity  had  occurred. 
On  the  22d,  the  funeral  of  King  took  place. 
May22.  More  generally   than   upon   the  Sabbath,   all 
places  of  business  were  closed.     The  body  was 
taken  to  the  Unitarian  Church.     The  Rev.  Mr. 
Cutler  made  a  brief  address,  the  Kev.  Mr.  Tay- 
lor read  appropriate  passages  of  Scriptui'e,  and 
the  Rev.  Mr.  Lacy  followed  with  some  details 
of  conversations  that  he  had  held  with  the  de- 
ceased during  his  last  sickness,  wherein  he  had 
expressed  himself  assured  of  the  truths  of  the 
Christian  relio^ion.     The  whole   house  was  af- 
fected  to  tears. 

Then  came  the  procession  to  Lone  Mountain. 
First  in  the  line  were  the  representatives  of 
seven  Lodges  of  the  Masonic  Order,  in  full  rega- 
lia ;  then  the  Society  of  Pioneers ;  next  the 
Sacramento  Guard  ;  then  every  company  of  the 
Fire  Department,  except  Crescent,  No.  10,  of 
which  Casey  was  once  the  foreman ;  then  two 
hundred  and  fifty  mounted  draymen  ;  then  one 
hundred  and  forty-two  stevedores ;  then  the 
Turners  in  costume  ;  then  a  deputation  from  a 
colored  society ;  then  a  long  line  of  mourners  in 


JAMES   king's   FimEEAL.  443 

lu   all,   the    procession   numbered  chap. 
thousands  of  people.     Many  bands  of  music  ._^_ 
accom]3anied  it,  but  in  silence,  their  mute  instru-    1856. 
ments  draped  in   mourning.     To  Lone  Moun-     ^^ 
tain,  with  Masonic   honors,  the  body  was  re- 
signed.    The  spot  is  marked  by  a  fine  monu- 
ment that  was  erected  by  the  citizens. 

The  bereaved  people  of  the  State  cheerfully 
accepted  as  their  charge  the  support  of  the 
widow  and  orphans  of  their  champion.  Con- ' 
tributious  in  money  poured  in  generously  from 
all  quarters  for  their  benefit.  The  proceeds, 
amounting  to  over  thirty-one  thousand  dollars, 
were  profitably  invested  by  the  trustees  of  the 
fund  and  the  guardians  of  the  children. 

The  same  day — and  those  who  rode  most 
swiftly  back  from  the  cemetery  were  too  late 
to  witness  the  extraordinary  sight — both  Casey 
and  Cora  were  hano-ed  in  Sacramento  Street, 
near  Davis,  in  front  of  the  head-quarters  of  the 
Vigilance  Committee.  The  hour,  one  and  a 
half  p.  M.,  was  chosen  as  the  time  when  there 
would  be  the  least  crowd. 

The  murderers  had  been  tried  by  the  com- 
mittee and  found  guilty.  A  trap  had  been 
constructed  from  the  second-story  window  of 
the  committee's  building ;  the  condemned  were 
placed  upon  it,  and  they  were  asked  if  they  had 
any  thing  to  say. 

James  Casey  was  thirty-nine  years  of  age. 


-i44  THE   HISTOKY    OF    CALIFORiaA. 

CMAP.  He  had  formerly  lived  iu  New  York,  was  tried 

XXX.  • 

J_^_^  tliere  in  1849  for  grand  larceny,  was  found 
1S56.  guilty,  and  condemned  to  two  years'  imprison- 
^^  ""'  ment  in  Sing  Sing.  He  served  out  his  time, 
inserted  a  "  P."  in  his  name,  emigrated  to  Cali- 
fornia, and  soon  became  a  most  valuable  assist- 
ant of  the  "ruling  classes,"  as  an  expert  at 
manufacturing  election  returns.  When,  in  the 
fall  of  1855,  his  purposes  required  that  he 
should  enter  the  Board  of  Supervisors  as  a 
member,  he  scorned  the  slow  methods  of  most 
j)oliticians,  he  neglected  the  "primary  elec- 
tions "  on  which  others  set  such  store,  and  yet 
he  was  elected,  to  the  astonishment  of  his  dis- 
trict, whose  foremost  men  did  not  know  that  he 
was  runnino;  until  the  vote  was  announced.  "  If," 
said  the  News  of  that  day,  "if  the  eleven 
thousand  voters  are  satisfied  with  this,  if  there 
is  not  a  gallows  in  the  land  at  the  service  of 
such  wretches,  so  let  it  remain."  Casey  had 
visited  the  editor  after  this  passage  appeared 
in  it,  but  Mr.  Bartlett  was  amply  prepared,  and 
there  ^^"as  no  collision.  Casey  had  found  the 
gallows,  and  now  stood  under  it. 

He  had  been  told  the  day  before  that  he 
must  die,  and  by  the  invitation  of  the  com- 
mittee. Archbishop  Alemany  had  visited  him. 
He  had  property  worth  some  thirty  or  forty 
thousand  dollars;  he  appointed  Charles  Gal- 
lagher as  his  executor.     The  Grand  Jury  of  the 


EXECUTIOlSr   OF   CASEY   AND    COEA.  445 

City  and  County  bad  on  tbe  preceding  day  in-  chap. 
dieted  Casey,  Edward   McGowau,   and   Peter  _;^ 
Wightman,  for  the  murder  of  King ;  but  that    1856. 
fact  gave  him  little  concern.     Justice  was  swift- 
er than  Law,  and  was  in  no  mood  to  wait  for 
her  tardy  companion. 

Casey  was  asked  if  he  had  any  thing  to  say. 
With  pinioned  arms  he  addressed  the  vast  con- 
gregation that  stood  before  him.  He  charged 
that  no  one  of  all  he  saw,  and  especially  the 
newspaper  men,  should  call  him  a  murderer.  His 
faults,  he  said,  were  those  of  his  education.  He 
had  been  taught  that  it  was  his  province  to  re- 
sent a  wrong — he  had  done  so  now.  He  spoke 
of  his  aged  mother — it  was  her  pain  that  he 
felt.  He  pardoned  those  who  took  his  life — he 
asked  pardon  of  God  for  the  guilt  of  his  life. 
With  another  exclamation  concerning  his  poor 
mother  he  seemed  to  faint.  Those  who  were 
near  sustained  him,  and  Father  Gallagher 
pressed  to  his  lips  the  cross,  which  he  kissed. 

By  the  side  of  Casey  stood  Cora,  three  hours 
a  bridegroom,  having  been  married  that  morn- 
ing to  a  public  woman,  who  had  lavished  mon- 
ey not  in  vain  for  his  defence  before  the  court, 
and  in  all  his  troubles  shown  constant  devo- 
tion. He  desired  to  say  nothing.  He  only 
pressed  the  cross  to  his  lips  re];)eatedly,  and 
waited,  without  emotion,  until,  at  twenty  min- 
utes past  one  o'clock,  the  cord  that  held  the 


446  THE   HISTORY   OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  outer  ends  of  tlie  platforms  was  cut,  and  the 

XXX  . 

_^_.  t^vo  miserable  men  were  suspended  lifeless. 

1856.  Thousands  of  people  witnessed  from  the 
streets  and  the  house-tops  this  terrible  spectacle. 
Many  steamers  from  bay  and  river  towns  had 
come  in  with  deleo-ations  to  attend  Mr.  King-'s 
funeral.  After  the  services  in  the  church,  and 
the  procession  in  carriages  and  on  horseback 
had  started  for  the  cemetery,  hundreds  had 
bent  their  way  towards  the  committee's  head- 
quarters, though  without  any  definite  idea  of 
what  would  occur.  A  dead  silence  reiijned 
over  the  whole  assemblage  when  they  perceived 
what  was  proceeding. 

As  if  to  deepen  still  more  the  gloom  of  the 
day,  while  the  procession  was  moving  and  the 
scaffold  was  being  constructed,  the  Golden  Age 
steamed  up  the  bay,  bringing  the  news  that  on 
the  15th  of  April  more  than  one  hundred  of  the 
natives  on  the  Isthmus  had  assaulted  the  Cali- 
fornia-bound passengers  from  the  Illinois,  and 
the  passengers  from  the  C6»r^^<9,  bound  eastward, 
and  had  massacred  twenty,  and  severely  wound- 
ed fifty  or  sixty  more.  Nothing  was  lacking  to 
make  the  day  thoroughly  memorable. 

The  bodies  of  Casey  and  Cora  were  given 
over  to  the  coroner.  His  jury  held  an  inquest, 
and  found  a  verdict  to  the  effect  that  they 
"  came  to  their  death  by  hanging  by  the  neck, 
which  hanging  was  done  by  a  body  of  men 


EXECUTION  OF  CASEY  AND  COEA.       447 

styling  themselves  a  Vigilance  Committee  of  ^^^* 
San  Francisco."  Cora  was  buried  on  Saturday,  ■ — , — • 
followed  to  the  grave  by  a  few  friends.  ^^^^• 

Casey's  body  was  given  to  the  engine  com- 
pany of  which  he  was  once  foreman.  On  the 
following  Sunday  the  funeral  took  place,  when 
a  large  procession  followed  the  body  to  the 
Mission  Dolores  Cemeter^^  Not  long  after,  a 
tasteful  graystone  monument  was  erected  over 
his  remains,  and  it  is  to-day  one  of  the  most  no- 
ticeable structures  in  the  old  churchyard,  as  you 
ride  along  the  Mission  road.  On  one  side  of  it 
A^'as  cut  the  following :  "  Erected  by  the  Mem- 
bers of  Crescent  Engine  Company,  No.  Ten,  as 
a  tribute  of  respect  and  esteem."  On  another 
side,  cut  in  a  white  marble  slab,  was  the  fol- 
lowing :  "  Sacred  to  the  memory  of  James  P. 
Casey,  who  departed  this  life  May  2 2d,  1856, 
aged  twenty-seven  years.  May  God  forgive 
my  persecutors.     Requiescat  in  pace." 

The  day  after  the  burial  of  King,  movements 
about  the  head-quarters  gave  token  that  the  May23 
Vigilance  Committee  meant  to  continue,  for  a 
while  at  least,  the  work  it  had  so  vigorously 
commenced.  A  large  cooking  stove,  and  cart- 
loads of  bedding,  were  added  to  the  appoint- 
ments of  the  upper  rooms  of  the  United  States 
Appraiser's  store,  which  they  occupied.  A 
heavy  triangle  was  suspended  from  a  frame  on 
the  roof,  a  signal  stroke  on  which  brought  every 


448  THE   HISTOEY   OF   CALIFOENIA. 

CHAP.  Yigilcant  to  his  feet,  and  several  cells  were  fitted 
"^^   up  for   the   confinement  of  prisoners.     Before 

1856.  night,  an  armed  detachment  brought  in  to  oc- 
cupy the  cells,  besides  other  notables,  Billy 
Mulligan,  one  of  the  sherift^'s  deputies,  Martin 
Gallacjher,  who  had  achieved  renown  as  a  ballot- 
box  stuffer,  and  "  Yankee  Sullivan."  Although 
James  Sullivan  was  one  of  the  judges  of  the 
election  which  stuffed  Casey  into  the  Board  of 
Supervisors,  in  this  emergency  he  remembered 
that  he  was  not  an  American  citizen,  and  ap- 
pealed to  the  British  Consul,  but  in  vain.  Born 
in  Ireland,  he  was  transported  to  Sydney  for 
felony,  and  escaped  thence,  leaving  his  true 
name,  Francis  Murray,  behind  him,  but  l)ring- 
ing  to  Sag  Harbor,  Long  Island,  the  reputation 
of  a  prize-fighter.  Very  soon  Sullivan  removed 
to  New  York,  where  he  kept,  on  Division 
Street,  the  "  Sawdust  House,"  and  extended  his 
fighting  fame.  He  got  the  name  of  "  Yankee  " 
from  the  fact  that  he  went  into  the  ring,  at  one 
of  his  fights,  with  the  American  flag  wrapped 
about  his  loins.  In  1849,  at  Rock  Island,  Mary- 
land, he  was  whipped  by  Tom  Hyer  in  seventeen 
minutes,  the  stakes  being  ten  thousand  dollars. 
In  1853,  at  Boston  Corners,  he  fought  with 
John  Morrissey.  In  1850  he  came  to  Califor- 
nia, but  tarried  only  a  short  time.  In  1854  he 
came  again    to  the    State,  and    plunged    into 


YANKEE  Sullivan's  suicide.  449 

the  cai'eer  of  vice  for  whicli  his  previous  life  chap. 
had  educated  him.  v— ^—^ 

From  the  hour  that  he  was  taken  prisoner,  i856. 
mortal  fear  seemed  to  possess  him.  He  ex- 
pressed deep  penitence,  and  promised,  if  his 
life  were  spared,  to  reform.  He  was  told  that 
he  need  not  fear  being  hanged,  for  the  com- 
mittee would  not  execute  any  man  for  crimes 
that  were  not  capital  in  the  eyes  of  the  law. 
He  begged,  that  if  they  banished  him,  he  might 
be  sent  away  separate  from  his  companions, 
who  he  said  would  kill  him  for  what  he  had 
divulged.  He  wrote  a  long  confession,  chiefly 
regarding  his  election  frauds,  which  implicated 
many  parties. 

Early  on  the  morning  after  the  eighth  night  of  May3i. 
his  confinement,  he  suddenly  shouted  for  a  glass 
of  water,  and,  when  it  was  brought  him,  he  told 
the  guard  his  dream.  He  had  stood  under  the 
gallows,  the  fatal  rope  was  around  his  neck,  the 
drop  was  falling,  when  he  woke  strangling, 
calling  for  water,  and  in  a  cold  sweat.  The 
guard  told  him  that  he  was  not  to  suffer  the 
extreme  penalty,  that  he  would  only  be  ban- 
ished. He  knew  it,  he  said,  but  the  crimes  of 
his  life  haunted  him,  and  he  deserved  to  die. 
The  guard  took  breakfast  to  him  a  iew  hours 
later,  but  Sullivan  was  dead.  With  a  dull 
case-knife  he  had  sawn  a  terrible  gash  in  his 

29 


450  THE  HISTORY    OF   CALIFOEtflA. 

CHAP,  arm,  and  tlius  severed  an  artery,  from  whicli  lie 

^^  bled  to  death. 

1856.  The  day  before  this  new  horror  was  added  to 
the  history  of  the  times,  Judge  Terry,  of  the 
Supreme  Coui*t  of  the  State,  issued  a  writ  of 
liaheas  corpus  for  the  person  of  Billy  Mulligan. 
But  the  shenff  who  attempted  to  serve  it  could 
not  give  the  pass-word  to  enter  the  building, 
and  the  Executive  Committee  paid  no  attention 
to  the  writ.  The  rumor  prevailed  that  Govern- 
or Johnson  was  about  to  issue  a  proclamation, 
and  that  he  had  applied  to  General  Wool,  com- 
mandant of  the  Pacific  Department,  for  arms, 
and  to  the  commander  of  the  United  States  ship- 
of  war  John  Adams,  then  in  the  harbor.  To 
prevent  a  surprise,  on  Saturday  morning — 
Yankee  Sullivan  then  lying  dead  in  his  cell — 
the  streets  were  cleared  for  two  blocks  each 
way  from  the  head-quarters,  six  brass  pieces 
were  mounted,  swivels  loaded  wdth  grape  were 
placed  on  the  roof,  two  cannon  guarded  by 
one  hundred  French  musketeers,  were  pointed 
up  Sacramento  Street,  and  two,  guarded  by  a 
hundred  riflemen,  pointed  down  Davis  Street,  and 
towards  the  steamboat  landing.  The  whole  com- 
mittee was  under  arms,  and  the  triangle  was 
ready  to  summon  other  aid  if  necessar}' .  There 
proved  to  be  no  need  for  this  preparation,  how- 
ever, unless  the  very  extent  of  it  averted  the 
dano-er.     The  Governor  was  unfortunate  in  his 


A   REACTIOlSr    WAITEB   FOE.  451 

solicitations  witli  General  Wool,  and  the  John  chap. 
Adams,  willing  as  that  vessel's  commander  H^_ 
l^robably  was,  did  not  interfere.  1856. 

On  the  first  Sunday  in  June  the  triangle  ^^^  ' 
sounded  the  alarm.  Charles  P.  Dnane,  a  New 
Yorker  until  1849,  but  from  1852  for  a  couple  of 
5'-ears  chief  engineer  of  the  San  Francisco  Fire 
Department,  was  arrested.  He  made  consider- 
able resistance,  but  the  clangor  of  the  triangle 
brought  out  the  Vigilants,  armed  in  such  num- 
bers that  he  surrendered  and  went  to  jail.  Next 
day,  "  Wooley  Kearney  "  was  arrested,  in  whose 
house  was  found  a  ballot-box,  innocent  and 
honest  enough  to  look  at,  but  curiously  con- 
trived, with  sliding  sides,  from  the  grooves  be- 
hind which,  though  locked  and  sealed,  when 
a  concealed  spring  was  pressed,  hundreds  of 
ballots  could  be  added  to  those  deposited  by  the 
voters. 

The  Vigilance  Committee  had  been  now, 
for  a  fortnight,  in  vigorous  action.  It  has  been 
shown  that  the  newsj^apers  almost  unanimously 
— the  clergy  with  astonishing  boldness — the 
church  almost  as  a  church — the  people,  appar- 
ently for  the  time  as  one  man — approved  the 
formation  of  the  committee.  But  it  was  natu- 
ral to  look  for  a  reaction  after  the  committee 
had  begun  to  make  aiTests — after  they  had 
hanged  two  men,  and  a  third  had  gone  a  sui- 
cide fi'om  their  piison  into  the  hands  of  the 


452  THE   KTSTOEY    OF    CALIFOENIA. 

^xx^x"  ^^^^^^^j  ^^^^^  ^iis  dead  body  had  been  exposed 

V— V— '  to  the  view  of  thousands  of  curious  people. 

185G.  But  if  a  reaction  was  coming,  it  was  time  for 
it  to  show  some  tokens  to  that  effect.  Two 
daily  newspapers  had,  after  a  little  hesitation, 
come  out  in  opposition  to  the  Vigilance  Com 
mittee.  The  lawyers,  as  a  class,  were  opposed. 
Indeed,  it  was  not  so  much  the  law  as  the  law- 
yers that  the  people  had  rebelled  against.  The 
judges,  from  their  very  positions,  must  fi'own 
upon  the  movement  which  dared  to  act  as  if 
justice  w^ere  more  sacred  even  than  law.  One 
distinguished  clergyman,  Dr.  Scott,  was  known 
to  lack  sympathy  with  the  committee,  although 
far  the  greater  part  of  his  congregation  belonged 
to  it.  The  politicians,  bound  hand  and  foot  to 
party,  soon  perceived  that  opposition  was  their 
cue.  There  must  be  in  a  city  of  so  many  in- 
habitants no  inconsiderable  numbers  of  con- 
servative men,  who,  after  winking  at  the  exe- 
cution of  Casey,  would  return  to  their  old  love 
of  law  and  order. 

So  the  politicians  and  the  lawyers  argued, 

June  2.  ^"^nd,  supposing  that  the  time  had  come,  the 
Herald  of  June  2d  called  for  a  mass  meetins: 

o 

of  the  friends  of  law  and  order,  at  two  o'clock 
of  that  day,  on  the  plaza. 

When  the  hour  arrived,  there  was  a  small 
gathering  inside  the  plaza  fence,  and  a  great 
concoiurse    outside    it — ^placards   having  been 


LAW   viND    OEDEE   MEETHfa.  453 

posted  in   the   neigliborliood  inviting  sympa-  chap. 
tbizers  with  the  Vigilance  Committee  to  stay  ,__^^_ 
outside.     Alexander  Campbell  called  the  meet-  1856. 
ing  to  order,  and,  on  his  nomination,  John  H.    "^^  " 
Wade  took  the  chair. 

As  Mr.  Wade  began  to  speak,  there  was  a 
great  rush  into  the  plaza  and  towards  the  plat- 
form. The  force  of  the  placards  was  exhausted. 
The  "  Law  and  Order  "  men  said  that  the  Vigil- 
ants  were  trying  to  create  a  riot  and  break  up 
the  meeting.  The  Vigilants  protested  that 
they  were  simply  seeking  good  places  to  hear. 

All  the  speakers  were  lawyers — Wade,  Camp- 
bell, C.  H.  Brosnan,  Calhoun  Benham,  and 
Colonel  E.  D.  Baker.  While  Benham  glorified 
the  law,  and  magnified  the  virtue  of  yielding  it 
peaceful  obedience,  he  unwittingly  exposed  the 
butt  of  a  revolver  stuck  in  his  belt.  The  crowd 
cried  out  upon  this  evidence  of  distrust  in  his 
own  doctrine.  Benham  coolly  told  them  that 
he  went  prepared  to  enforce  obedience  to  the 
law. 

Colonel  Baker  had  a  hard  task  to  secure  a 
hearing.  He  had  defended  Cora,  and  the  crowd, 
hissed  him,  groaned  at  him,  and  uttered  many 
expressions  of  disrespect,  reminding  him  and 
each  other  of  the  ten-thousand-dollar  fee  he 
was  reported  to  have  taken  for  that  defence, 
and  of  his  eulogy  of  the  woman  whom  Cora 
had  made  his  wife  on  the  morning  of  his  exe- 


454  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  cution.  But  the  eloquent  colonel  battled 
,_^_,  bravely  tlie  storm,  and  conquered  it  at  last. 
1856.  While  he  was  speaking,  an  attempt  was  made 
to  raise  the  United  States  flag  to  the  top  of 
the  liberty  pole.  When  it  had  neared  the  top, 
the  halyards  parted,  and  the  bunting  came  to 
the  ground.  The  Vigilant s  cheered  the  inci- 
dent as  an  omen,  saying  that  the  flag  declined 
to  protect  their  opponents.  Altogether,  the 
meeting  was  admitted  to  have  failed  of  its 
object. 


GOVEENOR   JOHNSOTf   USTTERFEEES.  455 


CHAPTEE  XXXL 

COLLISION  OF  THE    VIGILANCE   COMMITTEE  WITH  THE 
STATE  AUTHORITIES. 

Next  day — it  was  the  third  of  June — Gov-  chap. 

.  •  XXXI 

ernor  Johnson  issued  from  the  executive  cham-  ,J.^_^ 
ber  at  Sacramento  a  proclamation,  which  de-  1856. 
clared  San  Francisco  in  a  state  of  insurrection. 
It  commanded  all  volunteer  companies,  and  all 
persons  subject  to  military  duty  within  the  coun- 
ty, to  report  immediately  to  Major-General  Wil- 
liam T.  Sherman  (since,  the  hero  of  the  Georgia 
march),  and  all  within  the  third,  fourth,  and  fifth 
districts — which  included  the  whole  territory 
from  the  northern  line  of  Mendocino  to  the 
southern  border  of  Tulare,  and  from  the  Sierras 
to  the  ocean — to  be  in  readiness  to  respond  to 
further  orders.  The  Vis-ilance  Committee  it 
ordered  to  disband. 

Perhaps,  if  the  Governor  had  been  more 
prompt,  this  proclamation  might  have  stimu- 
lated the  coveted  reaction.  It  came  too  late  to 
do  the  opposition  much  good,  and  the  Vigilants 
heard  it  scornfully  or  w^ith  quiet  unconcern. 
It  did  not  commend  itself  to  the  masses.     The 


456  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  city  had  been  for  weeks  orderly  to  an  unusual 
XXXI  .    •  .  - 

^_^_  degree.     The  civil  courts  proceeded  with  their 

1856.    business  unhindered,  the  criminal  courts  found 

little  to  do,  and  time  hung  heavy  on  the  hands 

of  the  police.     The  coroner  was  seldom  called, 

and  inquests  were  few  and  far  between.     The 

morning   papers    omitted   the   item   with   the 

standing  head — "  A  man  found  drowned."     It 

was  astonishing  how  few  the  man-traps  on  the 

wharves  caught.     The  citizen  went  where  he 

chose  at  night,  and  had  no  fear  of  robbery. 

The   stranger   saw  silent  men   patrolling  the 

streets  after  dark,  and  felt  himself  safe  in  any 

quarter.      The    good    people  of  the   interior 

agreed  with  those  of  the  Bay  City,  tbat  there 

was  nothing  to  take  up  arms  for ;  so,  wherever 

the    proclamation   was    read,    it    "was    duly 

laughed  at." 

But  the  State  military  authorities  opened  re- 
cruiting offices  in  San  Francisco,  and  invited 
enrolments.  Nor  was  the  appeal  in  vain. 
Some  very  shabby  fellows,  and  not  a  few  re- 
spectable men,  who,  in  other  times,  would  have 
avoided  all  militaiy  connections,  as  foreign  to 
their  taste,  volunteered  for  the  support  of  law 
and  order. 

Seeing  these  hostile  preparations,  the  Vigil- 
ants  opened  their  books  for  new  enlistments. 
Meanwhile  they  kept  on  with  their  main  work, 
notifying  dangerous  persons  what  day  must  be 


HE   PROCLAIMS    AN   rNSUREECTIOlS'.  457 

their  last  on  the  coast,  and  shipping  some  of  chap. 
their  prisoners.  They  put  their  head-quarters  v_^^_, 
in  order  and  fortified  them.  To  make  sure  1856. 
against  surprise,  they  constructed  a  bulwark 
six  feet  high,  of  a  double  row  of  gunny-bags 
filled  with  sand,  from  the  front  corners  of  their 
buildins:  to  and  along:  the  centre  of  Sacramento 
Street.  Chinks  between  the  bail's  were  left  for 
port-holes,  through  which  protruded  occasion- 
ally the  muzzles  of  sundry  cannon — ships'  guns 
mounted  for  land  service.  They  called  their 
secure  retreat,  thus  fortified,  "  Fort  Vigilance." 
The  opposition  named  it  "Fort  Gunny-Bags." 
They  forbade  the  use  of  spirituous  liquors  in 
their  buildings.  The  triangle  on  the  roof  they 
replaced  with  a  bell.  They  gathered  in  more 
small-arms,  and  the  numbers  on  whom  they 
could  rely  to  use  them  grew  daily.  Their  place 
was  always  well  garrisoned,  and  they  had 
twenty-five  cannon  at  their  command. 

When  the  proclamation  had  been  four  days  Juno7. 
before  the  public,  a  committee  of  foremost  citi- 
zens, among  whom  were  Colonel  Joseph  B. 
Crockett,  F.  W.  Macon  dray,  Henry  S.  Foote, 
Balie  Peyton,  and  John  Sime,  by  previous  ar- 
rangement, met  G-overnor  Johnson  at  Benicia, 
where  ha  was  in  company  with  Volney  E. 
Howard,  Judge  Terry,  and  other  advisers,  and 
respectfully  petitioned  His  Excellency  not  to 
precipitate  a  collision.    They  represented  that 


458  THE   HISTORY    OF   CALIFOR^^A. 

CHAP,  they  were  authorized  to  say  that  the  Vigilance 
;_2^_,  Committee  would  desist  from  the  exhibition  of 
1856.  armed  forces  in  public,  and  would  obey  the 
writ  of  liaheas  corpus,  if  they  could  have  as- 
surances that  the  State  authorities  would  pro- 
ceed  no  farther  in  opposition.  The  Governor 
put  his  brief  answer  in  writing.  He  would 
certainly  do  all  that  he  could  to  avert  unneces- 
sary bloodshed,  but  he  should  execute  the  laws ; 
and,  if  a  collision  occurred,  the  responsibility 
must  rest  on  those  who  disresrarded  the  author- 
ity  of  the  State. 

Before  the  parties  separated  after  this  fruit- 
less meeting,  General  Sherman  put  into  the 
hands  of  the  Governor  his  resignation  of  the 
command  of  the  second  division  of  the  State 
militia.  In  a  card  that  he  published,  he  re- 
minded the  public  that  he  was  no  advocate  of 
the  Viofilance  Committee.  He  had  tried  to 
enroll  the  militia  of  his  district,  and  had  prom- 
ised to  arm  them,  basing  his  promise  upon 
the  verbal  assurance  of  General  Wool  (then 
commanding  the  Pacific  Department  of  the 
United  States  Army)  to  Governor  Johnson, 
that  he  would  issue  suificient  arms  for  the  emer- 
gency, upon  call.  But  when  the  requisition  was 
made,  General  AVool  had  changed  his  mind,  and 
refused  the  arms.  He  (General  Sherman)  had 
counselled  moderation  and  forbearance ;  as  this 
counsel  did  not  seem  to  coincide  with  the  Gov- 


GENEEAL    SHERMAN   RESIGNS.  459 

ernor's  views,  lie  thought  it  best  to  resign  Lis  chap. 
commission.     The  Governor  accepted  the  res- 
ignation, and    appointed  Volney   E.  Howard    i856. 
Major-General  in  Sherman's  stead. 

General  Wool  took  ample  notice  of  this  slur 
that  Sherman  cast  on  his  firmness  or  veracity, 
afterward,  when  it  was  repeated  from  another 
quarter.  For  the  present  he  simply  ordered 
the  observance,  on  the  part  of  the  army  officers, 
of  the  strictest  neutrality. 

About  this  time  news  came  from  Washing- 
ton that  Philip  Herbert,  one  of  the  California 
members  of  Congress,  had  killed  a  waiter  at 
Willard's  Hotel,  because  the  waiter  had  an- 
swered impudently  his  imperious  orders  after  a 
debauch.  Then,  on  the  same  day  that  a  fatal 
affray  was  telegraphed  as  occurring  at  Coloma, 
it  was  announced  that  a  gambler,  who  had  for- 
merly drawn  pay  for  work  not  done  as  a  copy- 
ing clerk  at  the  San  Francisco  Hall  of  Records, 
had  shot  an  officer  of  the  law  at  Sacramento. 

By  the  Herbert  affair  the  people  felt  that 
they  were  disgraced  throughout  all  Christen- 
dom. The  other  acts  of  violence  would  not 
have  caused  the  slio-htest  sensation  at  another 
time,  but  now  they  fell  like  sparks  on  tinder, 
kindling  a  determination  all  through  the  State 
to  see  the  end  at  once  of  a  condition  in  society 
wherein  the  average  standard  of  morality  was 
lower  than  that  of  the  majority.     They  burned 


460  THE   IIISTOEY    OF   CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  to  let  the  world  see,  by  the  clearest  proofs  at 
^^■^^-  Lome,  that  though  their  representative  had 
1856.  proved  a  murderer,  he  did  not  fairly  represent 
California  society.  They  had  meetings  in  many 
towns,  in  which  they  denounced  the  Governor's 
proclamation,  and  in  some  cases  passed  resolu- 
tions assuring  the  Vigilants  that  when  they 
took  up  arms,  it  should  be  to  defend  reform  and 
punish  villains.  Many  military  companies  dis- 
banded to  prevent  any  awkward  contingencies, 
in  which  they  followed  an  example  that  had 
been  set  in  San  Francisco,  where  some  on  so 
doing  surrendered  their  arms  to  the  State,  and 
others  took  theirs  to  the  Vigilance  Committee, 
as  the  real  representatives  of  the  people. 

On  the  9th  of  June  the  Vio-ilance  Commit- 

Juno  9.  tee  issued  an  address  to  the  public,  in  which 

they  rehearsed  the  circumstances  that  led  to 

their  organization,  and  put  forth  the  philosophy 

on  which  they  justified  it : — 

Self-government  was  the  people's  inalienable 
right.  From  the  people  emanated  the  right  of 
their  own  representatives  to  enact  laws,  and  of 
their  honestly  elected  officers  to  execute  them. 
When  the  enacted  laws  failed  of  execution,  it 
was  the  people's  right  to  I'esume  the  power 
that  they  had  delegated,  or  which  had  been 
usurped.  In  tins  case,  three-fourths  of  all  the 
people  of  the  State  sympathized  with  and  en- 
dorsed their  efforts  at  reform.     It  did  not  fol- 


THE   VIGILANCE   OEGANIZATION.  461 

low,  because  tliey  had  not  seen  fit  to  resume  chap. 

.  XXXI 

all  the  powers  confided  to  executive  or  legal  .^^^,^ 
officers,  that  they  were  not  at  liberty  to  with-  185G. 
draw  the  authority  of  unlawful  serv^ants  who 
used  authority  to  thwart  justice.  The  com- 
mittee had  been  intrusted  by  the  people  with 
the  task  of  gathering  evidence,  and,  after  trial, 
of  expelling  ruffians  and  assassins  who  had  out- 
raged peace  and  good  order,  violated  the  ballot- 
box,  and  overruled  law.  They  would  spare  no 
pains  to  avoid  civil  war,  but  their  work  they 
must  do ;  the  reform  in  hand  they  had  pledged 
their  lives,  their  fortunes,  and  their  sacred  hon- 
or to  accomplish.  When  it  was  finished  they 
would  resign  their  power  into  the  hands  of  the 
people. 

In   1849   a  Vigilance  Committee  had  been    1849. 
organized  to  put  down  "  The  Hounds."  In  1851,    i85i. 
when  the  "  Sydney  Coves  "  became  intoleralde, 
a  Vigilance  Committee  suddenly  came  to  the 
rescue.     A  scrutiny  of  the  names  on  its  rolls 
showed  that  it  was  the  still  extant  organization 
of  1849.     In  1853  the  dispersed  Sydney  thieves    1853, 
reappeared  in  town,  and  gave  due  notice  of 
their  amval  by  a  repetition  of  their  old  famil- 
iar acts  of  violence.       One  morning,  a  notice 
was  published  in  a  newspaper,  requesting  the 
Executive  Committee  of  the  Vigilants  of  1851 
to  meet.     That  was  enough.     It  does  not  ap- 
■pear  whether  the  meeting  called  for  was  ever 


462  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFOENIA. 

CHAP,  lielcl,  but  the  Sydneys  took  tlie  hint  and  slipped 
out  of  sight.     Upon  the  death  of  James  King, 

1856.  the  aroused  people  found  the  hull  of  the  old 
organization,  which  had  never  been  formally 
broken  up,  and  built  it  up  to  the  formidable 
Vigilance  Committee  of  1856. 

Those  who  joined  it  signed  a  constitution, 
which  explained  its  object  in  a  general  way, 
and  agreed  to  be  governed  in  matters  of  detail 
by  a  set  of  by-laws,  which  were  never  publish- 
ed. They  denominated  themselves  "  The  Com- 
mittee of  Vigilance,"  an  association  for  the  pro- 
tection of  the  ballot-box,  the  lives,  liberty,  and 
property  of  the  citizens  and  residents  of  San 
Francisco.  "  We  do  bind  ourselves,"  said  they, 
"  each  unto  the  other  by  a  solemn  oath,  to  do 
and  perform  every  just  and  lawful  act  for  the 
maintenance  of  law  and  order,  and  to  sustain 
the  laws  when  fciithfully  and  properly  adminis- 
tered. But  we  are  determined  that  no  thief, 
burglar,  inceudiary,  assassin,  ballot-box  stuffer, 
or  other  disturber  of  the  peace,  shall  escape 
punishment,  either  by  quibbles  of  the  law,  the 
carelessness  or  corruption  of  the  j^olice,  or  a 
laxity  of  those  who  pretend  to  administer  jus- 
tice." They  agreed  to  keep  open,  night  and 
day,  rooms  for  their  deliberations,  with  always 
one  in  attendance  to  receive  from  members  re- 
ports of  acts  of  violence,  and,  if  an  emergency 
demanded    it,  to   summon  the  committee  for 


THE  VIGILANCE   ORGANIZATION.  463 

sucli    action    as    a    maiority   when   assembled  chap. 

XXXI 

sliould  determine  on.  It  \vas  the  duty  of  the  ._^^ 
Executive  Committee  chosen  by  the  General  i856. 
Committee  to  decide  upon  the  measures  neces- 
sary to  carry  out  the  objects  of  the  association, 
and  to  call  into  conference  a  Board  of  Dele- 
gates, consisting  of  three  from  each  subdivision 
of  the  General  Committee,  when  the  subject  of 
their  determination  was  grave.  The  associa- 
tion was  to  be  kept  free  from  all  considerations 
or  discussions  of  sects,  sections,  or  politics,  and 
any  orderly  citizen,  irrespective  of  nativity,  party, 
or  sect,  could  join  it.  No  accused  person  could 
be  punished  until  after  fair  and  impartial  trial 
and  conviction.  The  General  Committee  wer€ 
to  be  bound  by  the  decision  of  the  majority,  on 
any  question  submitted  by  the  Executive  Com- 
mittee ;  but,  as  to  the  punishment  of  criminals, 
the  death  penalty  could  only  be  enforced  when 
two-thirds  of  those  present  approved  it.  Fi- 
nally, they  said,  "  believing  ourselves  to  be  exec- 
utors of  the  will  of  a  majority  of  our  citizens, 
we  do  pledge  our  sacred  honor  to  defend  and 
sustain  each  other  in  carrying  out  the  deter- 
mined action  of  this  committee,  at  the  hazard 
of  our  lives  and  our  fortunes." 

The  Executive  Committee  consisted  at  first 
of  thirty-three  members.  A  portion  of  the  time 
they  sat  as  a  legislative  body,  and  then  again  as 
a  court.     They  had  a  prosecuting  attorney,  and 


464  THE   HISTOEY   OF   CALIFORJflA. 

CHAP,  counsel  of  tlieir  own  number  was  always  as* 
,__^__^  signed  to  defend  the  party  charged  with  crime. 
1850.   Their  meetings  were  secret,  and  few  of  their 
proceedings    were    ever    authoritatively   pub- 
lished, or  even  announced  to  the  body  that  ap- 
pointed them. 

Within  the  General  Committee  was  a  police 
organization,  with  a  chief,  and  a  sheriff  with  his 
deputies.  The  rest  of  the  General  Committee 
was  divided  into  military  companies — infantry, 
artillery,  and  dragoons — of  about  one  hundred 
men  to  each  company,  which  drilled,  some  at 
head-quarters,  and  some  at  apartments  outside, 
provided  for  the  purpose.  A  notice  from  the 
secretary  to  the  captains  was  usually  all  that 
was  necessary  to  obtain  a  general  meeting ;  but 
for  sudden  emergencies,  there  was  the  triangle 
on  the  roof,  or  the  bell  that  replaced  it,  a  tap  on 
which  would  summon  such  a  swarm  of  men 
from  their  business  as,  in  the  older  time,  noth- 
ing but  a  general  fire-alarm  would  have  called 
together.  The  head-quarters  was  at  once  an 
armory,  a  drill-room,  a  court-room,  a  guard- 
house, a  fort,  and  a  secure  prison. 

They  got  most  of  their  cannon  from  the  ship- 
ping in  the  harbor ;  their  muskets  from  their 
domiciles,  from  George  Law's  wandering  stock, 
some  with  a  lot  of  sabres  from  cases  which  the 
State  took  in  charge  as  its  contingent  from  the 
United  States,  and  did  not  sufficiently  guard, 


THE   VIGILANCE   OEGANIZATION.  465 

and  some   from  the  volunteer  companies  dis-  chap. 

•  XXXI 

banded  on  tlie  Governor's  proclamation,  who  ; 

thought  the  people  the  safest  guardians  of  their   i856. 
trust. 

They  never  lacked  funds.  The  wealthy  men 
who  went  into  the  committee  shed  their  money 
like  water,  ^vhile  a  great  deal  of  the  patrol, 
police,  and  other  daily  work  of  the  organization, 
was  rendered  gratuitously.  It  was  said,  at  the 
time,  that  five  hundred  dollars  a  day  covered 
their  expenses  when  most  extended. 

The  committee  often  published  brief  procla- 
mations, but  they  were  only  signed  "No.  33, 
Secretary,"  and  impressed  with  the  committee's 
seal — an  eye.  It  does  not  appear  that  this  im- 
personal signature  was  ever  forged,  or  that  any 
j)erson  ever  found  it  to  his  interest  to  utter  an 
official  paper  with  a  bogus  eye  on  it. 

A  great  many  citizens,  who  never  signed  the 
constitution  of  the  Vigilance  Committee,  signi- 
fied their  readiness  to  assist,  whenever  it  should 
need  outside  aid.  On  the  12th  of  June  there  June  12 
was  a  meeting  of  such  sympathizers,  to  the 
number  of  about  three  hundred,  for  conference. 
Judge  D.  O.  Shattuck  presided,  and  at  a  later 
session  Balie  Peyton.  Ex-Recorder  Baker  said 
he  had  not  joined  the  committee,  because  his 
oath  as  an  attorney  prohiljited  him.  Ex- 
United  States  Senator  Henry  S.  Foote  an- 
nounced his  approval  of  the  objects  of  the  meet- 

30 


466  THE  HISTORY   OF   CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  ing,  and  liis  sympatby  with  the  Vigilants,  A 
committee,  on  which  were  H.  M.  Naglee,  La- 

1856.  fjiyette  Maynard,  and  Abel  Guy,  presented 
resolutions,  which  were  adopted,  expressing 
confidence  in  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  and  of  the  State,  respectfully  requesting 
Governor  Johnson  to  withdraw  his  proclama- 
tion, recommending  the  press  to  avoid  exciting 
discussions  and  irritating  appeals,  protesting 
that  the  term  "  official  corruption  "  should  not 
be  construed  to  embrace  the  acts  of  all  the  ju- 
dicial officers  of  the  county,  a  majority  of  whom 
were  beyond  reproach,  and  expressing  a  readi- 
ness, if  disappointed  in  their  hopes  of  an  early 
peaceful  termination  of  their  difficulties,  to  or- 
ganize and  maintain  the  right. 

This  protest,  limiting  the  scope  of  the  term 
"  official  corruption,"  was  timely  and  just.  For, 
curiously  enough,  there  were  some  excellent 
men  on  the  bench  even  then  in  San  Francisco. 
Edward  Norton  (who  in  1861  received  as  high 
a  compliment  as  the  State  often  pays  to  a  cit- 
izen, having  been,  while  absent  from  the  coun- 
try, elected  to  a  seat  on  the  bench  of  the  Su- 
preme Court  of  California)  was  Judge  of  the 
Twelfth  District  Court ;  but  partly  because  he 
was  particularly  averse  to  the  trial  of  criminal 
cases,  he  had  very  seldom  to  deal  with  the 
notorious  villains  who  cursed  the  community. 
On  the  bench  of  the  Fourth  District  Court  was 


VIGILAT^fCE   MASS   MEETING.  46T 

Judge  Hager,  whose  integrity  was  not  ques-  chap. 

tioned.     In  the  Superior  Court,  until  the  Con-  , ; 

solidation  Act  legislated   it   out  of  existence,    1856. 
was  Judge  Sbattuck,  a  Vigilance  sympathizer. 
Freelon  was  County  Judge,  and  Mayor  Van  Ness 
was  Police  Judge  or  Recorder. 

As  a  fruit  of  these  conference  meetings  was 
the  great  mass  meeting  before  the  Oriental 
Hotel,  held  on  the  15th  of  June.  Balie  Peyton  June  15 
presided.  Among  the  speakers  was  William 
Duer,  who,  in  the  course  of  his  remarks,  said 
that  probably  more  than  five  hundred  murders 
had  been  committed  in  California  during  the 
preceding  year,  yet  not  more  than  five  of  the 
perpetrators  had  been  punished  according  to 
the  forms  of  the  law  !  He  enumerated  some 
cogent  reasons  why  the  ballot-box,  under  the 
guardianship  of  ruffians,  could  not  be  expected 
to  cure  the  evils  they  endured.  In  a  late  elec- 
tion in  St.  Mateo  County,  from  three  precincts, 
where  there  were  but  three  hundred  voters,  fif- 
teen hundred  votes  had  been  returned.  At 
Crystal  Springs,  where  there  were  but  about 
thirty  voters,  five  hundred  votes  had  been  re- 
turned by  the  agency  of  the  same  ballot-box 
stuffers  who  controlled  the  San  Francisco  elec- 
tions. 

But  the  immense  audience  did  not  remember 
the  meeting  so  much  for  the  speeches  as  for 
their  sight  of  the  famous  "  patent  ballot-box," 


458  THE   HISTORY   OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  wliicli  had  been  captured  at  Wooley  Kearney's 
^^__^_^  house,  and  which  Colonel  Peyton  exhibited,  as 
1856.  "  the  orator  of  the  occasion." 

Governor  Johnson  saw  little  at  home  to  en- 
courage him  in  the  thankless  job  he  had  under- 
taken, so  he  appealed  to  the  powers  at  Wash- 
June^o  ingtoD.  By  the  steamer  of  the  20th  of  June, 
he  wrote  to  President  Pierce  a  statement  of  the 
awkward  plight  of  himself  and  the  State  which 
he  could  not  govern,  and  an  appeal  for  aid  in 
enforcing  the  local  laws.  To  be  sure  that  his 
letter  should  neither  miscarry  nor  fail  to  be 
pressed  upon  the  attention  of  the  Administra- 
tion, he  also  sent  R.  Augustus  Thompson,  and 
F.  Forman,  postmaster  at  Sacramento,  to  deliver 
it  to  Mr.  Pierce,  and  furnish  such  details  as 
could  not  be  embodied  in  a  written  communi- 
cation. 

A  month  later,  Secretary  Marcy  wrote  to  the 
Governor  that  the  President  had  received  it, 
and  given  it  his  most  careful  consideration,  but 
being  troubled  with  serious  doubts  of  his  law- 
ful power  to  23roceed  in  the  manner  desired,  he 
had  referred  the  subject  to  the  Attorney-Gen- 
eral, who  found  insuperable  obstacles,  which 
the  President  adopted  as  his  own. 

The  Governor's  communication  briefly  recited 
the  events,  which  caused  him  to  confess  that  he 
could  not  manage  his  own  matters.  Seeing 
things  in  a  different  light  from  that  of  San 


THE  GOVERNOR  APPEALS  TO  THE  PRESIDENT.  469 

Francisco,  lie  reported  tliein  as  tliey  seemed  to  chap. 
him.  The  Vigilance  Committee,  he  said,  was  _^__^ 
formed  on  the  16th  of  May,  "  secret  in  its  char-  1856. 
acter,  and  to  the  uninitiated  its  purposes  un- 
known." A  mob,  before  the  committee's  or- 
ganization, had  attempted  to  "rescue"  Casey 
from  the  officers  of  the  law,  and  summarily 
punish  him,  but  the  attempt  was  successfully 
resisted.  Meanwhile  the  mayor  had  called  out 
the  military  forces  of  the  city,  numl)ering  some 
ten  companies  ;  but  not  more  than  fifty  or  sixty 
of  all  their  numbers  could  be  dej^ended  on. 
Several  companies  disbanded  ;  a  large  number 
of  their  members  joined  the  Vigilance  Commit- 
tee, cariying  with  them  their  arms  and  accou- 
trements, and  the  only  two  pieces  of  artillery 
belonging  to  the  State.  The  sheriff  did  his  ut- 
most to  obtain  the  aid  of  a  jposse^  Ijut  not  one  in 
ten  of  those  summoned  would  obey  his  call. 
On  the  l7th  of  May,  three  or  four  thousand 
men  marched  to  the  jail  and  demanded  Casey 
and  Cora.  The  sheriff,  powerless,  was  fain  to 
surrender  them,  and  a  few  days  later  the  com- 
mittee hung  their  two  captives  from  the  win- 
dows of  their  place  of  meeting.  They  arrested 
other  individuals,  and  established  a  system  of  es- 
pionage unknown  to  the  laws  or  usages  of  a  re- 
public. The  sheriff  was,  by  armed  resistance, 
prevented  from  serving  a  writ  of  habeas  cor'pus^ 
issued  by  a  judge  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 


470  THE    HISTORY    OF    CALIFOENIA. 

CHAP.  State,  on  one  of  tlieir  prisoners,  and  the  person 
xxxr.  £^^,  whom  the  \vi'it  was  issued  was,  with  others, 
1856.  transported  beyond  the  limits  of  the  State, 
while  one  prisoner,  rather  than  submit  to  be 
banished,  committed  suicide  in  his  cell.  The 
Governor  said  he  had  detailed  to  General  Wool, 
in  a  personal  interview,  the  condition  of  affairs, 
and  shown  him  that  he  was  almost  destitute  of 
arms,  and  entirely  destitute  of  ammunition ;  and 
the  general  had  "unhesitatingly  promised"  to 
furnish  on  his  requisition  what  arms  and  am- 
munition he  required.  On  the  3d  of  June  he 
issued  his  proclamation,  and  a  day  or  two  after 
made  a  requisition,  but  then  General  Wool  re- 
fused, alleging  a  lack  of  authority !  In  the 
mean  time  the  Vis:ilance  Committee  continued 
to  arm  themselves  with  muskets,  and  their 
head-quarters  with  guns,  varying  in  size  from 
six  to  thii*ty-two  pounders,  numbering  in 
all  thirty  pieces ;  they  had  erected  foitifica- 
tions  ;  jiroceeded  with  the  trial  and  conviction 
of  prisoners ;  and  held  some  still  in  custody, 
while  others  in  fear  had  lied  to  remote  parts  of 
the  State.  In  the  streets,  and  throughout  the  city, 
they  harangued  the  people  "  both  against  the 
General  and  State  Governments,"  and  at  least 
one  of  their  i^resses  had  defiantly  come  out 
against  existing  authority,  and  called  upon  the 
people  to  assemble  and  form  a  new  government. 
He  was  powerless  to  arrest  these  unlawful  pro- 


THE  GOVEENOE  APPEALS  TO  THE  PRESIDENT.  471 

ceedin2:s,  simply  because  lie  was  destitute   of  ohap. 

.   •  .  XXXI 

arms  and  ammunition  to  equip  a  force  capable  >_^_i 
of  coping  with  them,  who  numbered  now  six  or  1856. 
seven  thousand,  with  sympathizers  in  large 
numbers  outside.  He  had  not  muskets  or  rifles 
enough  for  six  hundred  men — of  ordnance  and 
ammunition  he  had  none.  He  therefore  asked 
that  the  United  States  officers  commandins;  the 
Pacific  Division  be  ordered  to  issue  to  the  State 
arms  and  ammunition  sufficient  to  suppress  the 
insurrection  now,  and  at  any  future  time  when 
required  by  the  Governor. 

Such,  in  substance,  was  the  statement  which 
President  Pierce  turned  over  to  his  Attorney- 
General,  Caleb  Gushing,  for  that  distinguished 
lawyer  to  find  good  legal  reasons  for  denying  its 
petition.  Mr.  Gushing  treated  it  precisely  as 
if  he  thought  it  a  story  founded  on  facts.  He 
perceived  that  Governor  Johnson  had  forgotten 
to  convene  the  Leo:islature,  throuo-h  whose  call 
alone  the  President  could  be  moved  to  action ; 
and,  moreover,  that  if  the  California  Legislature 
had  invited  his  interference,  the  statute  only 
authorized  him  to  call  out  the  military  of  some 
other  State,  or  to  employ  the  United  States 
forces — the  law  presuming  that  a  Governor  will 
always  be  competent  to  call  out  his  own  State 
militia.  In  the  present  case,  there  were  no  cir- 
cumstances of  superlative  exigency,  there  was 
no  actual  shock  of  arms.     The  constitutional 


472  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFOENIA. 

CHAP,  power  of  the  State  liad  not  been  exhaasted — 
■   it  had  not  even  been  exerted ;  and  so  Mr.  Cush- 

185G.  ing,  not  presuming  to  say  that  tbe  President 
had  not  moral  authority  in  his  discretion,  con- 
cluded that  he  had  not  sufficient  legal  justifica- 
tion for  acceding  to  Governor  Johnson's  request. 


THE   VIGILANTS   SEIZE   THE   STATE's    AEMS.       4*73 


CHAPTER  XXXn. 

THE  VIGILANCE    COMMITTEE  ASSUMES  MORE 
DOUBTFUL  POWERS. 

If  the  Governor  had  waited  until  the  next  char 
steamer,  he  might  have  made  even  a  stronger  ^_^ 
ease  to  the  Government,  for  the  Sierra  Nevada    1856. 
had  not  been  twenty-four  hours  out  of  port      '^®' 
when  the  Vis-ilance  Committee  assumed  some 
new  and   still   more  startling  responsibilities. 
They  learned  that  the  Governor,  having  ob- 
tained a  portion  of  the  State's  quota  of  arms, 
was  shipping  them  from  up  the  river  to  the 
care  of  General  Howard  at  San  Francisco.  They 
heard  that  some  of  these  were  on  board  the 
schooner  Julia,  which  had  already  left  Sacra- 
mento, and  they  deemed  it  essential  to  the  pub- 
lic peace  that  they  should  never  arrive  at  their 
appointed  destination.     So,  on  the  evening  of 
the  20th  of  June,  J.  L.  Durkee,  with  a  detach- Jnne  20 
ment  of  Visrilants  in  a  craft  obtained  for  the 
purpose,  went  up  the  bay  as  far  as  the  islands 
called  "  The  Sisters,"  and  lay-to.     In  the  course 
of  the  night   the  Julia  came   gliding   down. 
Durkee's  party  boarded  her,  showed  Vigilance 


474  THE   HISTORY   OF    CALLFOllKIA. 

CHAP,  autliority  for  what  tliey  did,  took  out  one  hun 
^_,^_,'  dred  and  fifty  muskets  and  tlie  ammunition, 
1856.  which  were  in  charge  of  Reuben  Maloney  and 
John  Phillips,  let  the  men  go,  but  conveyed 
the  property  to  the  city,  and  before  the  people 
were  stirring,  lodged  it  safely  in  the  commit- 
tee's arsenal. 

Soon  afterwards  another  party  of  Vigilanta 
boarded  a  schooner  in  the  bay  which  had  neared 
the  w^harf,  and  was  loaded  with  a  cargo  of 
bricks.  The  Vigilants,  turning  up  a  few  courses 
of  bricks,  came  down  upon  twelve  cases  of  rifles 
and  six  cases  of  ammunition — another  remit- 
tance from  the  Governor's  treasured  supply  for 
General  Howard's  militia.  Of  course  they  were 
all  transferred  to  the  Vigilants'  arsenal  without 
delay. 

When  the  Vigilants'  Executive  Committee 
June  21  met  on  Saturday  (June  21st)  to  hear  the  re- 
ports from  these  expeditions,  they  concluded 
that  they  ought  to  have  Reuben  Maloney  be- 
fore them  to  testify  as  to  the  circumstances  of 
the  shii:)ment  of  the  arms,  and  ordered  Sterling 
A.  Hopkins,  of  their  police,  to  2:)roduce  him. 

Hopkins,  with  two  assistants,  went  at  once 
to  the  office  of  Dr.  H.  R  Ashe,  the  United 
States  Navy  Agent,  at  the  corner  of  Washing- 
ton and  Kearny  streets,  over  Palmer,  Cook  & 
Company's  banking-house.  They  found  the 
man  sought,  and  several  others  whom  they  did 


A   STREET    COLLISIOlSr.  475 

not  seek — amono;  them  Dr.  Ashe,  who  was  a  chap. 

•  •  XXXII 

captain  of  one  of  the  Governor's  military  com-  ,_^_^ 
pauies,  and  David  S.  Terry,  an  Associate  Justice  1856. 
of  the  Supreme  Court.     As  these  two  gentle-  ^'^^''  ' 
men  assured  Ho|ikins  that  no  arrest  could  be 
made  in  their  presence,  he  returned  to  the  com- 
mittee-rooms, where,  being  furnished  re-enforce- 
ments, he  was  ordered  to  make  the  arrest  at  all 
hazards. 

So  soon  as  the  Vigilant  police  had  left  their 
presence,  Judge  Terry,  armed  with  a  rifle  and 
bowie-knife.  Dr.  Ashe  carrying  a  rifle,  and 
others  armed  with  pistols,  descended  to  the 
street,  as  an  escoi't  for  Maloney,  whom  they  de- 
signed to  take  to  the  Dupont  Street  Armory,  and 
leave  him  in  care  of  the  Law  and  Order  troops. 
They  had  not  gone  far  up  Jackson  Street,  when 
Hopkins's  party  overtook  them.  Terry's  com- 
pany turned  and  faced  them  as  they  approached, 
bringing  their  arras  into  a  threatening  position 
and  warning  them  to  keep  back.  Hopkins 
sprang  upon  Terry,  and  Officer  Bovee  upon  Dr. 
Ashe.  The  doctor  surrendered,  but  Terry 
struggled  manfully.  A  pistol  was  fired  acci- 
dentally in  the  crowd  tliat  gathered,  and  the 
great  confusion  made  the  exact  process  of  events 
a  difficult  thing  to  describe.  Terry  surrendered 
his  rifle  at  last,  but,  as  he  did  it,  he  caught  out 
his  bowie-knife  and  plunged  its  blade  into  Hop- 
kins's neck,  severing  the  cai'otid  artery,  and  mak- 


476  THE   HISTORY   OF   CALIFORIJ^IA. 

CHAP,  ing  a  wound  wliicli  for  many  days  tliereafter 
J_^'  threatened  to  prove  fatal.  In  the  excitement 
1856.  of  the  moment  it  was  not  generally  known  that 
Jime2i.  jj^)p]jing  ^yas  wounded,  nor  until  after  Terry 
and  his  friends,  including  Malgney,  had  escaped 
to  the  armory. 

Meanwhile  the  Vigilance  bell  sounded,  and 
men  from  all  corners  of  the  city  were  gathering 
to  head-quarters.  Draymen  stopped  in  the 
street,  freed  from  their  carts  tbeir  horses, 
mounted,  and  went  clatteiing  to  the  rendezvous. 
Storekeepers  locked  up  hastily  and  ran.  Clerks 
leaped  over  their  counters  ;  carpenters  left  the 
shaving  in  the  plane  ;  blacksmiths  drop2:)ed  the 
hammer  by  the  red-hot  iron  on  the  anvil ; 
schoolmasters  dismissed  their  pupils.  It  seemed 
as  if  the  whole  male  population,  on  foot  and 
on  horseback,  was  hurrying  to  Sacramento 
Street.  Occasionally  one  would  be  seen  stem- 
ming the  tide,  running  against  the  current  to 
the  armory.  These  were  the  Law  and  Order 
men,  availing  themselves  of  the  Vigilant  alarm 
to  gather  at  their  head-quarters.  In  three 
quarters  of  an  hour  after  the  alarm  was  sounded, 
every  armory  in  the  city,  and  every  house 
where  it  was  suspected  that  the  Law  and  Order 
people  had  concealed  any  store  of  arms,  was 
surrounded  by  armed  Vigilants. 

The  iron  doors  and  shutters  of  the  Blues' 
armory  on  Duj)ont  Street  were  closed  as  the 


JUDGE  TERET    EST   PEISOTf.  477 

main  body  of  the  Vigilant  troops  drew  up  citap. 
about  it,  and  for  a  time  it  was  supposed -tliat  ,.1.^ 
resistance  would  be  made.  But  soon  Dr.  isso. 
Aslie  appeared  at  a  window  witli  a  message 
from  the  beleaguered,  asking  a  conference  as  to 
the  terms  of  capitulation.  The  Vigilants  de- 
manded, first  of  all,  the  surrender  of  Judge 
Terry  and  Reuben  Maloney.  Very  soon  after, 
these  worthies  were  produced,  and,  together 
with  Dr.  Ashe,  were  conveyed  to  Fort  Vigil- 
ance. The  armory,  with  its  three  hundred 
muskets,  was  soon  turned  over  to  the  besiegers, 
who,  with  their  prize,  marched  off  to  the  next 
armory,  planted  a  cannon  before  the  door, 
drew  up  in  line,  and  demanded  a  surrender. 
Colonel  West  commanded  at  the  California  Ex- 
change Armory.  When  the  order  to  surrender 
came,  he  ran  his  eye  along  his  little  force  of 
seventy-five  men,  then  glanced  at  the  surging 
multitude  outside  and  at  the  cannon,  thought 
how  useless  it  would  be  to  sprinkle  the  streets 
with  blood,  and  ordered  his  men  to  stack  their 
arms.  It  was  the  same  story  at  all  the  rest. 
By  six  o'clock  the  whole  job  was  completed ; 
there  was  not  one  of  the  two  thousand  mus- 
kets, and  scarcely  a  pound  of  powder,  which 
the  Governor  or  his  Law  and  Order  men  con- 
trolled in  the  morning,  that  was  not  now  in 
Vigilant  hands,  and  all  the  men  found  in  the 
armories  had  been  marched  off,  two  and  two,  to 


478  THE    HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP.  Fort  Vigilance.     Next  morning  all  the  State's 

■  soldiery  were  discharged. 
1856.  It  was  a  heavy  day's  work,  that  21st  of  June. 
Three  days  before,  the  committee  thought  itself 
almost  ready  to  lay  down  its  power.  Now  it 
found  itself  possessed  of  arms  enough,  in  an 
attitude  of  defiance  of  the  State  executive,  in 
dan<2:er  of  a  collision  with  the  Federal  author!- 
ties  if  it  should  turn  out  that  the  arms  taken 
from  the  Julia  and  the  Mariposa  were  not 
State  but  United  States  property,  and  with  a 
Supreme  Court  judge  on  its  hands  as  a  prisoner 
whose  victhn  was  expected  to  die. 

If  Hopkins  should  die,  it  must  go  hard  with 
Terry,  for  in  those  days  murder  by  a  judge  was 
held  to  be  as  heinous  a  crime  as  murder  com- 
mitted by  an  untitled  rufiian.  It  would  be 
very  awkward  for  the  committee  to  hang  a 
judge.  If  they  should  do  it,  it  would  be  like 
suspending  the  whole  Supreme  Court.  Judge 
Heydenfeldt  was  at  the  East  on  a  visit.  Chief- 
Justice  Murray  was  still  in  the  State,  but  he 
was  under  the  ban.  He  had  more  than  once 
had  his  personal  encounter  in  the  streets  of 
Sacramento,  and  there  was,  on  the  part  of  the 
newspapers,  a  ])Yetiy  vigorous  demand  for  his 
removal. 

While  the  ugly  gash  in  Hopkins's  neck  re- 
fused to  be  healed,  the  shadow  of  the  gallows 
must  have  darkened  Terry's  cell;  something 


GENERAL   HOWARD'S   OFFICIAL   REPORT.  479 

made  Lim  moody  and  tame.     When  it  healed  chap. 

•  XXXII 

and  the  wounded  man  was  clearly  doing  well,  _,^_' 
Terry  recovered  his  defiant  air,  and  bore  him-    i856. 
self  like  a  high  judicial  officer,  though  in  du- 
rance. 

He  had  very  busy  friends  at  work  planning 
his  release.  Major-General  Volney  E.  Howard 
hurried  up  to  Sacramento,  and,  to  an  assembly 
in  front  of  the  Orleans  Hotel,  told  the  story  of 
his  friend's  capture ;  but  his  audience  turned 
his  speech  into  ridicule,  and  testified  their  sym- 
pathy with  the  committee. 

The  general  then  presented  to  the  Governor 
an  "  official  report "  of  all  these  late  proceedings, 
in  which  the  story  was  told  with  some  varia- 
tions from  what  was  accepted  popularly  as  the 
true  version.  He  said  Terry  inflicted  the  wound 
on  Hopldns  while  the  later  was  trying  to  draw 
a  pistol,  and  expressed  his  opinion  that  if  Hop- 
kins died  it  would  be  a  clear  case  of  justifiable 
homicide.  Bemg  authorized  by  Ashe,  from  the 
second-story  window  of  the  Blues'  Armory,  to 
negotiate  for  the  judge,  he  promised  the  Vigil- 
ance Committee  that  Terry  should  deliver  him- 
self up  to  the  civil  authorities,  if  they  would 
raise  the  siege.  This  they  refused.  He  de- 
tailed the  seizui'e  of  the  State's  arms  in  the  city 
and  on  the  bay.  He  said  that  George  Law's 
roving  muskets  had  arrived  at  the  port,  and  had 
been  seized  or  purchased  by  the  Vigilants.   He 


480  THE   HISTORY    OF   CALEFOENIA. 

CHAP,  believed  that  the  committee  aimed  at  nothinsr 
^^  ■  less  than  the  overthrow  of  the  State  Govern- 
1856.  ment  and  secession  from  the  Federal  Union ! 
Though  the  French  Consul  had  ordered  all 
French  citizens  to  withdraw  from  their  treason- 
able connections,  several  hundred  of  them  still 
remained  in  the  Vi2:ilance  orc-anization — and  he 
blackened  their  character  without  scruj^le.  He 
admitted  that  crime  very  often  went  unpunished 
in  San  Francisco;  it  was,  however,  not  because 
judges  were  corrupt,  but  because  the  men  who 
constituted  the  Vi2;ilance  Committee  had  so 
persistently  shirked  jury  duty — in  which  state- 
ment the  general  told  at  least  a  portion  of  the 
truth. 

Terry  found  another  valuable  friend  in  an 
unexpected  quarter.  Judge  D.  O.  Shattuck, 
whose  sympathies  with  the  reformers  had  been 
clearly  displayed,  wrote  a  card  to  the  public,  in 
which  he  took  the  ground  that,  after  the  proc- 
lamation of  the  Governor,  and  the  organization 
of  the  State  forces  in  opposition  to  the  people, 
they  were  in  a  state  of  war.  When  Terry 
stabbed  Hopkins,  he  was  in  company  with  a 
legal  armed  force  (that  is.  Dr.  Ashe,  captain  of 
a  militia  company)  resisting  the  officers  of  a 
bellii2rerent.  Hence  he  was  entitled  to  be 
treated  as  a  prisoner  of  war,  and  hanging  him 
would  be  in  contravention  of  the  usages  of 
civilized  belligerents.    The  ai'gument  command- 


tekry's  friends.  481 

ed  no  respect,  but  its  author  did,  and  still  Judge  chap 
Terry  lay  in  the  Sacramento  Street  prison,  and  ,___^* 
was  refused,  after  a  few  days,  even  the  presence*  1856. 
of  his  ^vife. 

There  was  a  deal  of  clamoring  for  Terry  to 
resign  his  judgeship.  While  his  prospects  were 
most  dubious,  a  letter  from  his  wife  to  the  peo- 
ple was  published.  In  it  that  lady  expressed 
her  confidence  that  the  judge  would  resign  if 
the  wish  of  the  people  to  such  effect  could  be 
clearly  indicated. 

After  this,  and  while  Hopkins  was  doing 
very  well,  three  commissioners  came  down  from 
Sacramento  to  negotiate  for  an  adjustment  of 
difficulties.  They  were  Colonel  Zabriskie, 
General  James  Allen,  and  Dr.  C.  B.  Zabriskie. 
They  met  the  Executive  Committee  of  the  Vigil- 
ants,  stated  their  authoi-ity  and  errand,  and  re- 
ceived permission  to  pass  a  sealed  letter  to 
Judge  Terry.  In  that  letter  they  referred  to 
Mrs.  Terry's  intimation,  and  asked  what  he 
would  consider  a  satisfactory  expression  of  the 
will  of  th«  people,  and  invited  him  to  suggest 
some  means  of  ascertaining:  it. 

The  judge  replied  that  he  would  like  to  con- 
sult wdth  his  friends,  but,  he  wrote,  "  If  I  leave 
this  building  alive,  I  leave  it  as  Justice  of  the 
Supreme  Court  of  this  State,  and  no  power  on 
earth  can  make  me  change  this  resolution." 
Hopeless  as  this  made  the  case,  the  commission- 

31 


482  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFOEXIA. 

xSai'  ^'^^  obtained  permission  for  A.  P.  Crittenden  to 
— r-^  visit  the  judge  in  his  cell,  and  through  him 
185G,  came  a  proposition  for  discoveiing  the  wish  of 
the  people.  Let  Terry  be  tried  by  an  impar- 
tial jury,  and,  if  found  guilty  of  any  oifence,  he 
would  resisfu. 

That  ended  negotiations.  The  committee 
would  give  him  all  the  trial  he  would  get. 

The  commission  tried  to  keej)  its  mission  se- 
cret, l)ut  it  leaked  into  the  newspaj)ers.  Then 
it  was  whispered  that  the  Governor  never  au- 
thorized the  negotiation  ;  then  it  was  openly 
said  that  he  repudiated  it. 

This  brought  a  full  statement,  from  Colonel 
Zabriskie,  of  the  facts,  thou2:h  it  was  an  nno-ra- 
cious  task,  as  the  Governor's  wife  was  the  colo- 
nel's dauo-hter.  The  colonel  said  he  had  in- 
deed  no  written  authority,  but  none  the  less 
had  attempted  the  negotiation  at  Governor 
Johnson's  request,  made  before  witnesses  ;  just 
as,  a  while  before,  Judge  Monson  and  Charles 
T.  Botts  had  been  intrusted  with  a  similar  im- 
dertaking.  The  terms  of  peace  which  he  had 
been  authorized  to  propose  were  these :  The 
Vigilance  Committee  to  deliver  Terry  over  to 
the  legal  authorities,  to  restore  the  State  arms 
to  the  Governor's  possession,  and  to  disband. 
The  Governor  to  recommend  to  the  Lei]^islature 
the  passage  of  a  General  Amnesty  Act,  to  ad- 
vise the  authorities  in   San  Francisco  not   to 


TEIIRy's   case   1^   THE   U.    S.    SEXxVTE.  483 

prosecute  for  acts  done  by  or  at  the  instance  of  chap. 
the  committee ;  to  use  his  influence,  if  prosecu-  _^__' 
tions  were  commenced,  to  have  them  quashed,    isuo. 
and,  if  convictions  were  found,  to  grant  uncon- 
ditional pardon.     This  statement  was  indorsed 
by  Colonel  Zabriskie's  colleague,  and  the  names 
of  witnesses  to  the    executive's  authorization 
were  given.     Still,  when   the  negotiations  fell 
through,  the  Governor  repudiated  the  commis- 
sioners, and  the  father-in-law  repudiated   the 
Governor. 

Terry  found  friends  in  still  higher  c[uarters. 
The  news  of  his  incarceration  went  to  Texas, 
the  State  whence  he  emio-rated  to  California. 
The  Texas  Legislature,  being  in  session,  prompt- 
ly prepared  a  memorial  to  Congress,  praying,  if 
the  Federal  Government  or  Congress  could  con- 
sistently, that  it  would  interfere  in  his  behalf. 
This  memorial  Sam  Houston  presented  to  the 
Senate  on  the  29th  of  August,  and  the  judge  Aui:.2a. 
became  the  topic  of  the  morning  hour.  Mr. 
Houston  simply  called  attention  to  the  evidence 
of  the  intense  interest  that  the  case  excited  in 
Texas,  which  was  proven  by  the  memorial.  He 
remarked  that  while  in  Texas,  Judge  Terry  had 
borne  a  hio-h  character  as  an  honorable  man, 
and  was  an  ornament  to  the  community.  Mr. 
Brown  stated  that  a  more  honorable  man  than 
Judge  Terry  did  not  breathe  the  air  of  heaven. 
He  had  known  him  from  infancy,  and  his  pa- 


484  THE    HISTOEY    OF    CALIFORiSriA. 

CHAP,  ents    before    bim,    and    all    his    connections. 
■  There  was  not  a  blemish  on  his  character. 

1856.  But  John  Bell,  of  Tennessee,  saw  the  matter 
in  a  different  light.  He  had  in  his  pocket  a 
letter  from  a  gentleman  in  whom  he  put  great 
confidence,  who  bore  testimony  to  Terry's  high 
character,  l)ut  who  alleged  that  it  was  his  rash 
impulsiveness  that  got  him  into  this  trouble ; 
and  that  if  it  had  not  been  for  this  unfortunate 
occurrence,  the  Vigilance  Committee  would 
have  been  dissolved  before  that  time.  The 
writer  of  the  letter  was  not  a  member  of  the 
committee,  but  was  deeply  concerned  for  Teiry's 
safety.  He  stated  in  his  letter  that  there  was 
no  party  interest  involved  in  the  formation  of 
the  committee,  and  no  disloyal  sentiment  about 
it.  An  attempt  was  afterwards  made  to  give 
it  a  party  complexion,  but  it  was  without  foun- 
dation or  success. 

Mr,  AVeller,  of  California,  entirely  disagreed 
with  Mr.  Bell.  He  believed  that  the  commit- 
tee, after  executing  two  or  three  men,  and  caus- 
ing the  deportation  of  ten  or  fifteen  more, 
would  not  stop  there.  If  they  had  five  thou- 
sand men  under  arms,  he  was  satisfied  they 
w^ould  preserve  their  organization  until  the 
next  Presidential  term.  Judge  Terry  was  an 
honorable,  high-minded,  prudent  man,  who  felt 
bound  to  use  the  whole  of  his  moral  influence 
in  favor  of  sustaining  the  laws.     He  would  not 


THE   EXILES.  485 

undertake  to  say  whether  all  the  members  of  chap. 

XXXII 

the  Vigilance  Committee  were  loyal  to  the  __^ 
Federal  Government  or  not,  but  there  were  1856. 
men  in  California  who  were  not  loyal,  and  who 
had  openly  advocated  secession.  From  the 
first  Wednesday  in  September  of  that  year, 
until  November,  there  was  no  Legislature  that 
could  be  convened  in  California,  and  during  that 
interregnum,  he  thought,  the  President,  who 
had  scruples  about  lending  the  Governor  aid 
while  the  Legislature  could  be  convened,  had 
full  legal  authority  to  furnish  arms  and  ammu- 
nition to  help  liMt  down  the  revolution. 

The  memorial  was  referred  to  the  Judiciary 
Committee,  and  never  reported  upon. 

The  -ith  of  July  came  and  \vent,  without  any 
special  celebration  in  the  city.  General  How- 
ard's charge  of  secession  tendencies,  which,  as 
we  have  seen,  Mr.  Weller  echoed  a  month  or 
two  later  in  the  Senate,  were  not  deemed  of 
sufficient  importance  to  require  a  formal  exhi- 
bition of  patriotism  to  disprove  them. 

Edward  McGowan,  who  was  under  indict- 
ment as  an  accessory  to  the  murder  of  James 
King,  was,  about  this  time,  earning  i-enown  for 
his  ubiquity.  One  day  he  was  repoi-ted  in 
Carson  Valley,  begrimed  with  the  dust  of  the 
alkaline  plains  and  the  sweat  of  his  rapid  es- 
cape. The  next  he  was  said  to  be  in  Philadel- 
phia.    The  next  he  was  announced  in  Lower 


486  THE    niSTOIlY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP.  California.  Then  lie  was  seen  near  Hangtown 
^__^_,"  Creek.  Then  lie  was  at  Santa  Barbara.  This 
ib.)6.  last  report  came  up  fully  verified.  He  arrived 
there  on  horseback,  found  that  he  was  recog- 
nized, and  took  to  the  tule  marsh.  Somebody 
fired  the  tules,  but  they  were  green  and  would 
not  burn.  The  Vigilance  Committee,  hearing 
this,  dispatched  a  schooner  with  ten  of  its  po- 
licemen to  Santa  Barbara  to  capture  the  fugi- 
tive. When  they  arrived  McGowan  had  disap- 
peared, and  no  one  knew  where  he  had  gone. 

The  question  was  forced  on  the  committee, 
what  they  would  do  if  their  banished  should 
return  to  the  city.  Charles  Duane,  the  exiled 
ex- chief  of  the  Fire  Department,  left  the  Golden 
Age  at  Acapulco,  on  her  downward  trip.  When 
the  John  L.  Stephens  touched  at  Acapulco  on 
the  upward  trip,  Duane  got  on  board  and 
stowed  himself  away  until  the  Stephens  was  out 
of  the  harbor.  Captain  Pierson  hailed  the 
Sonora^  bound  to  Panama,  put  his  stow-away 
on  board  her,  and  so  saved  the  San  Franciscans 
an  awkward  job. 

One  of  those  who  had  been  banished  to  the 
Sandwich  Islands,  soon  after  reappeared  in 
San  Francisco.  The  committee  on  investi2:a- 
tion  discovered,  and  published  the  fact,  that 
owing  to  the  exile's  nervousness,  the  reading  of 
his  sentence  in  his  hearing  was  omitted  when 


HETHERIKGTON    SHOOTS    RANDALL.  487 

he  went  abroad.     This  omission  saved  liim  from  chap. 
tlie  death  penalty.  ^-v-^ 

It  was  the  boast  of  the  Vigilance  Committee,  i85i5. 
that,  since  they  had  taken  control,  deeds  of  vio- 
lence had  become  very  uncommon.  The  streets 
at  any  hour  of  the  night  w^re  safe.  The  man- 
traps in  the  wharves  caught  an  astonishingly 
small  number  of  victims.  Whereas,  before,  it 
was  rare  to  open  a  morning  j)aper  that  did  not 
have  an  item,  "Found  drowned" — and  quite 
accidentally,  of  course ;  now  the  coroner  seldom 
held  an  inquest. 

But  suddenly,  on  the  24th  of  July,  a  murder  July  24 
was  committed  in  l)road  daylight.  Joseph 
Hetherington,  an  Englishman  by  birth,  who 
had  lived  at  the  South  several  years,  and  came 
to  California  from  St.  Louis — a  gambler,  an 
acquaintance  (though  not  by  his  own  volition) 
of  the  Vigilance  Committee  of  1851,  and  who, 
in  1853,  fatally  shot  his  man  in  a  land  dispute — 
this  Hetherington  had  a  business  difficulty 
with  Dr.  Andrew  Randall,  a  native  of  Ohio, 
who  came  first  to  California  in  1859,  brins-iuo; 
with  him  a  commission  as  postmaster  for  Mon- 
terey, Kandall  was  afterwards  a  member  of 
Assembly  ;  then  a  dealer  in  real  estate ;  and  he 
had  acquired  a  good  deal  of  wealth,  especially 
in  land.  A  judgment  against  him  for  a  large 
amount  had  been  bought  by  Hetherington, 
and  Randall  refused,  or  at  least  failed,  prompt- 


488  THE   HISTORY    OF   CALIFORNIA. 

cuAV.  ly  to  pay  it.  So  many  hard  words  had  passed 
,_^_*  between  them,  that  they  both  went  armed,  ex- 
1856,   pecting  an  encounter. 

On  the  afternoon  of  the  24th,  they  met  in 
the  St  Nicholas  Hotel,  on  Sansome  Street. 
Hetherington  caught  Eandall  by  the  beard, 
and  uttered  some  iusultins;  remarks.  Randall 
felt  for  his  pistol,  and  Hetherington  fired. 
Several  shots  passed  between  them;  Hether- 
ington's  third  took  effect,  and  Randall  received 
a  wound  of  which  he  died  two  days  after- 
wards. 

A  city  policeman  arrested  the  murderer,  but 
the  Vigilance  police  relieved  him  of  his  charge, 
and  Hetherington  went  to  the  Sacramento 
Street  prison.  His  trial  resulted  in  a  convic- 
tion, and  the  Vigilance  troops  were  ordered  to 
be  in  their  armories  at  two  o'clock  on  the 
July  29  morning  of  the  29th.  By  three  o'clock  the 
troops,  to  the  number  of  three  thousand,  took 
possession  of  the  streets  in  the  vicinity  of  the 
gallows,  which  was  erected  on  Davis  Street,  be- 
tween Sacramento  and  Commercial.  An  im- 
mense crowd  flocked  to  see  the  execution. 

At  the  signal  from  the  bell,  Hetherington 
was  brought  out,  and  with  him  Philander 
Brace,  who  had  been  tried  and  convicted  of 
the  murder  of  Captain  Joseph  B.  West,  near 
the  Mission.  Brace  was  a  native  of  New  York 
State,  only  twenty-one  years  of  age,  and  not 


EXECUTION    OF   HETHERINGTON   AND    BRACE.  489 

wanting  in  early  education.  He  committed  chap, 
tlie  murder  for  whicli  he  was  now  to  suffer 
some  two  years  1)efore,  and  had  passed  un-  i856. 
harmed  througli  the  farce  of  a  trial  by  the 
court.  After  that,  he  spent  a  month  in  the 
county  jail,  in  j^unishment  for  a  petty  larceny — 
was  there  arrested  by  the  Vigilance  Commit- 
tee, tried  for  the  murder,  convicted,  and  con- 
demned to  death. 

Preceding  the  two  doomed  and  pinioned 
men,  as  they  rode  towards  the  gallows,  walked 
twenty-nine  members  of  the  Executive  Commit- 
tee. On  the  scaffold,  Hetherington  bore  him- 
self decorously ;  but  Brace,  who  in  prison  had 
evinced  penitence,  showed  great  impatience  for 
the  end.  Hetherington  addressed  the  crowd. 
He  protested  that  he  shot  Randall  in  self- 
defence,  denied  that  he  had  done  a  dishonorable 
act,  and  challenged  them  to  observe  that  he 
would  die,  as  he  had  lived,  a  gentleman.  While 
he  spoke.  Brace  frequently  interrupted  him 
with  the  most  horrid  blasphemies,  and  urged 
expedition.  At  ten  minutes  of  six  the  Vigil- 
ance bell  sounded,  and  the  drop  fell.  The 
bodies  of  Brace  and  Hetherington  were  sur- 
rendered to  the  coroner,  who  held  an  in- 
quest. The  members  of  the  Vigilance  Com- 
mittee, who  were  called  in  as  witnesses,  gen- 
erally declined  to  answer  any  questions.  The 
jury  brought  in  a  verdict  of  "  death  by  hang- 


490  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALLFORNLA. 

CHAP,  ing,    at   the    hands  of  (tliey  named  the 

,_^_,'  executioner)  and  a  person  unknown,  aided  and 
1856.  abetted  by  a  party  of  men  styling  themselves 
the  Committee  of  Visjilance  of  San  Francisco." 

This  certainly  was  a  rei^ii  of  terror  to  evil- 
doers,  but  not  to  others ;  for  though  the  usu- 
ally gay,  volatile,  driving  town  wore  an  air  of 
"  sad  sincerity "  during  the  three  months  of 
strict  vigilance  rule,  men  Vv^hose  record  was 
clean,  and  who  intended  right,  felt  a  rare  sense 
of  freedom  from  danger.  But  du1)ious  charac- 
ters were  in  a  very  unhappy  way.  They  felt 
.unsafe  in  the  cities,  and  they  suffocated  in  the 
thin  air  of  solitary  places.  They  could  not 
well  escaj^e  out  of  the  State  except  through 
San  Francisco,  and  if  they  ventured  into  that 
port  they  were  pretty  sure  to  lodge  the  very 
first  niglit  in  the  Vigilance  prison.  A  very  bold, 
bad  man  mio-ht  ioin  the  Committee  of  Viojilance 
to  escape  suspicion,  but  that  required  a  genius 
for  hypocrisy  to  prove  a  success. 

Indeed,  the  Executive  Committee  arrested 
more  than  one  of  the  members  of  the  Vigilance 
Committee.  The  brothers  Green  were  notable 
examples : — 

Alfred  A.  Green  had  often  heard  old  Cali- 
fornians,  who  when  sober  had  never  a  word  to 
say  on  the  subject,  babble  in  their  cups  about 
the  stupid  blunders  of  the  Americans  as  to  land 
titles ;  they  said  the  Land  Commission  was  ah 


THE   SAIS^   FRANCISCO    PUEBLO    PAPEES.  491 

ways  confirmiug  the  fraudulent  titles,  and  reject-  chap. 
ing  genuine  ones.  Especially  lie  Lad  lieard  one  ,_.^" 
Sanchez  say,  that  there  was  no  good  title  to  185G. 
land  on  the  peninsula  of  San  Francisco,  north 
of  the  Buri  Buri  Ran  die.  General  James  Mc- 
Dougall  filed  a  petition  with  the  Land  Commis- 
sioners in  behalf  of  the  city  for  the  pueblo 
lands.  Green  was  among  those  whom  McDou- 
gali  employed  to  assist  him,  and  he  had  already 
reached  the  conclusion  from  what  he  had  heard 
the  tipsy  Ijabbler  say,  that  there  were  in  exist- 
ence papers  which  would  prove  the  clear  title 
of  the  city,  as  the  pueblo's  successor,  to  all  the 
common  lands  which  claimants  under  a  variety 
of  fraudulent  claims  were  appropriating.  Green 
mentioned  his  surmises  to  McDougall,  who  en- 
couraged him  to  j)roceed,  then  slipping  a  couple 
of  bottles  of  liquor  into  his  buggy,  drove  off  to 
see  Sanchez. 

The  old  Californian  was  pleased  to  see  his 
visitor,  and  especially  his  bottles.  They  drank 
together  and  grew  confidential.  They  talked 
of  the  changes  that  had  come  over  the  times, 
of  the  old  and  the  new,  and  of  titles.  At  last, 
Green  putting  on  an  air  of  indignation,  charged 
Sanchez  with  slandering  his  countiymen,  and 
saying  that  they  held  possession  of  their  land 
under  forged  papers.  That  aroused  the  Spanish 
pride  of  Sanchez,  who  proceeded  to  make  good 
his  charge,  and  to  prove  that  it  v/as  no  slander, 


492  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  but  the  honest  truth.     He  said  that  when  the 
^__ "    ■  Americans  conquered  the  country,  the  old  Cali- 

185G.  fornians  believed  the  English  would  soon  come 
and  restore  the  Mexican  Government.  In  this 
expectation,  a  few  of  them  agreed  to  gather  up 
the  public  titles,  not  to  burn,  but  carefully  to 
conceal  them.  They  did  so,  and  the  precious 
papers  were  safe  now  under  the  floor  of  Tibur- 
cio  Vasquez's  bedroom.  Just  as  so  much  had 
been  said,  Sanchez''s  wife  came  in  and  begged 
Green  not  to  pay  the  slightest  attention  to  what 
he  had  heard,  as  if  it  were  simply  absurd. 
Green  eased  the  lady's  mind  with  a  jest,  and 
soon  after  returned  home. 

He  reported  proceedings  to  General  McDou- 
gall,  and  was  advised  to  get  the  paj)ers  by  any 
stratagem.  No  court  was  at  that  hour  in  ses- 
sion ;  if  he  waited  till  morning,  Sanchez  would 
probably  take  measures  to  avert  the  mischief 
he  had  been  beguiled  into,  and  McDougall 
would  be  oif  in  a  few  days  to  Washington,  to 
take  his  seat  in  Congress.  Time  was  precious. 
Green  went  directly  to  a  friend  and  said, 
"Nat.,  take  your  pen  and  write,"  and  Nat. 
Hicks  wrote  at  his  dictation  an  order  to  Ti- 
burcio  Vasquez,  to  deliver  to  A.  A.  Green  cer- 
tain pa2:)ers  mentioned,  signed  it  "  By  order  of 
the  Couit,"  sealed  it  with  a  bit  of  red  sealing- 
wax,  and  stamped  the  seal  with  the  face  of  a 
coin.     Then,  with  his  accomplice  and  one  of  his 


green's  euse  to  obtain  them.  493 

own  brothers,   Green  rode  over  to  Vasquez's  chap. 
place,  handed  him  the  order,  and  in   a  stern  "_1^_' 
voice  demanded  why  the  documents  had  been    isse. 
concealed  so  Ions;.     The  old  g^entleman  listened 
to  the  "  order  of  the  Court,"  looked  at  the  seal, 
turned  pale,  produced  at  once  the  papers,  and 
asked  for  a  receipt.     Green  wrote  a  receipt,  and 
signed  it  with  his  own  name,  though  it  looked 
more  like  a  "  Crane ''  than  a  "  Green." 

This  is  the  version  of  the  story  that  Green 
gave  four  years  later  in  court.  Vasquez,  under 
oath,  said  he  was  administrator,  and  held  the 
papers  in  charge  as  such ;  he  kept  them  on  a 
bench,  not  under  the  floor ;  they  were  not  con- 
cealed. An  American  once  before  had  them 
for  two  months,  took  copies  of  them,  and  re- 
tuiTied  them  accordina;  to  ao-reement.  He  could 
not  read,  but  when  Green  showed  and  read  to 
him  a  letter  from  the  Government,  he  delivered 
the  titles  and  took  a  receipt  for  them. 

So  Green  had  got  the  papers,  but  he  very 
soon  began  to  think  he  had  won  an  elephant. 
He  could  not  get  rid  of  them  again — at  least 
not  with  any  such  profit  as  he  had  hoped. 
General  McDougall's  hasty  departure  for  Wash- 
ington forbade  negotiations.  He  called  on 
Mayor  Brenham,  and  the  mayor  thought  he 
might  decently  ask  fifty  thousand  dollars  for 
them.  The  mayor  appointed  a  commission  to 
see  the  papers.     Green  said  that  on  the  com- 


494  TITE   inSTOEY   OF   CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  mission  was  one  gentleman  who,  reading  Span- 
■  ish,  saw  their  value,  but,  being  interested  in  a 
185G.  fraudulent  title,  assured  the  rest  of  the  commis- 
sion that  the}^  were  worthless.  Distinguished 
counsel  advised  tlie  mayor  that  there  were  val- 
uable papers  in  the  budget,  but  did  not  advise 
their  purchase,  and  the  city  did  not  buy. 
When  C.  K.  Garrison  was  elected  mayor.  Green 
called  on  him  about  this  business.  Over  a  bot- 
tle of  wine,  Garrison  told  him  that  he  liad  an 
interest  in  the  Potrei-o ;  after  he  got  rid  of  that, 
and  some  other  conflicting  interests,  he  would 
join  him  to  prosecute  the  city's  title  to  the 
pueblo.  He  called  on  Colonel  Crockett,  but 
the  colonel  was  retained  for  the  Fund  Commis- 
sioners to  fix  the  Vallejo  line.  Green  could 
not  get  the  confidence  of  the  press,  and  the 
law}'ers  were  against  him.  He  lectured  at 
Musical  Hall,  and  the  people  were  stirred  with 
his  story;  but  when  they  asked  tlie  lawyers 
about  it,  they  were  told  that  it  was  all  non- 
sense. So  his  suit  nowhere  prospered,  and  the 
papers  lay  in  a  box  under  Green's  bed,  more 
jealously  watched  than  while  Vasquez  kept 
them. 

Now  among  the  multitude  who  rushed  to 
sign  tlie  Vigilance  roll,  soon  after  James  King's 
death,  were  this  same  Alfred  A.  Green,  and 
Joliu  L.  Green,  his  brother;  indeed,  some  said 
that  all  the  brothers  were  members  of  the  com- 


THE  VIGILANCE  COMMITTEE  GET  THE  PAPERS.       495 

mittee,  though  probably  none  of  them  signed  chap. 
the  constitution,  which  was  not  prepared  for  v._^_,' 
sio'iiatures  until  the  committee  had  been  about   1856. 

o 

a  month  in  operation.  The  question  of  their 
membersliij:),  however,  was  not  debated  when 
the  Executive  Committee  determined,  in  view 
of  the  grave  interests  that  might  be  involved, 
to  possess  these  papers  for  the  city's  sake.  As 
Green  had  obtained  them  by  stratagem,  it 
would  not  be  surprising  if  he  should  attempt 
to  drive  a  verv  hard  baro;ain  before  surrender- 
ing  them,  if  warned  of  their  intentions.  So, 
suddenly  the  two  Greens,  Alfred  A.  and  John 
L.,  were  arrested,  confronted  with  Vasquez, 
and  the  papers  demanded. 

At  first,  Alfred  asked  fifty  thousand  dollars 
for  his  treasure.  Afterwards,  when  he  saw 
how  matters  were  managed  by  his  captors,  he 
agreed  to  take  twenty-five  thousand.  On  that 
he  was  sent  under  escort  to  his  house,  but, 
when  he  arrived  there,  and  learned  how  his 
family  had  suffered  in  his  absence,  he  told  his 
guards  they  should  have  his  papers  at  no  price. 
So  he  was '  taken  back  to  his  cell  again,  and 
there  he  lay  a  week  longer.  Then  they  gave 
him  a  memorandum  "  exculpating  all  his  fami- 
ly," and  tendered  him  twelve  thousand  five  hun- 
dred dollars  for  his  papers,  which  he  accepted, 
his  brother  being  dispatched  for  the  documents, 
and  executing  his  errand  faithfully.     The  com- 


496  THE   HISTORY   OF   CALITOENIA. 

CHAP,  mittee  paid  tlie  price,  the  Greeus  were  free,  and 
^_^_'  at  a  later  date  the  papers,  whatever  they  were 
1856.  worth,  were  turned  over  to  the  city. 

All  this  while  Judge  Terry  was  a  prisoner  in 
Fort  Vigilance.  There  was  some  talk  of  get- 
ting the  United  States  Circuit  Court  judge  to 
issue  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus  for  him,  which 
would  have  been  a  very  good  move  if  Judge 
McAllister  could  have  been  brought  to  issue  it. 
Since  Terry  himself  had  vainly  issued  such  a 
writ  for  Reuben  Maloney's  body,  the  committee 
had  j)i'ofes3ed  more  respect  for  habeas  corpuS' 
State  officers  armed  with  it  had  been  politely 
admitted  to  the  building,  and  invited  to  rum- 
mage all  cells  and  corners,  though  it  happened 
that  they  could  never  find  the  men  they  sought. 
Maloney's  testimony  in  court,  years  aftei'wards, 
threw  a  little  light  on  this  mystery.  He  said 
that  once  he  was  taken  out  of  the  main  build- 
ing, handcuifed,  and  secreted  in  another  house 
near  by  ;  and  he  was  told,  at  a  later  date,  that 
it  was  because  an  officer  was  searching:  for 
him. 

Then,  by  this  time,  the  committee  had  come 
to  be  very  chary  of  a  collision  with  the  Federal 
Government.  They  had  not,  indeed,  scrupled 
to  arrest  Dr.  Ashe,  the  United  States  Navy 
Agent,  and  they  had  possessed  themselves  of 
arms  which  had  just  gone  out  of  Federal  into 
State   hands.      But   in   that   case,   when    the 


JUDGE  TERRY  FREE.  497 

United    States   Marshal   wanted    Durkee,   he  chap. 
found  him,  and  Durkee  was  a  Federal  prisoner  ^._^_.' 
until  he  was  admitted  to  bail.     If  the  Circuit  1856. 
judge  had  interposed,  he  would  have  made  a 
very  av/kward  complication  of  affairs.     But  he 
declined  to  interfere,  and  about  that  time  news 
came  from  the  East  that  President  Pierce  did 
not  see  his  way  clear  to  meddle  witli  such  local 
matters. 

Meanwhile  Hopkins  was  pronounced  out  of 
danger,  and  that  fact  divested  Terry's  case  of 
its  most  alarming  features.  Finally,  his  trial, 
which  had  occupied  five  weeks,  and  on  which 
some  hundred  and  fifty  witnesses  had  been  ex- 
amined, came  to  an  end.  With  the  adoption 
of  a  resolution  that  he  was  unwoi-thy  the  con- 
fidence of  the  j:)eople,  and  ought  to  resign  his 
judgeship,  his  case  was  dismissed,  and  at  two 
and  a  half  o'clock  on  the  morning  of  the  7th  of  Aug.  7 
August,  he  was  set  at  liberty. 

The  news  -was  received  almost  angrily  by  the 
masses  of  the  Vio-ilants.  Seeiuo;  how  strono-  the 
tide  of  sentiment  ran  against  them,  the  Execu- 
tive Committee  called  the  Board  of  Delegates 
together,  and  talked  over  the  reasons  of  the  de- 
cision. There  were  l)ut  two  ways  of  dealing 
with  the  committee's  convicts — they  were  doom- 
ed either  to  banishment  or  death.  Terry  was 
not  guilty  of  murder,  for  the  man  he  had 
stabbed  was  alive  yet,  and  quite  recovered.  He 


32 


498  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  could  not  be  banished  without  makino;  a  livius: 

XXXII  •  .  . 

^_^_^*  martyr  of  him,  and,  with  the  influence  he  could 

1850.   rally,  there  could  be  no  guarantee  that  he  would 

not  return  thous-h  banished.      After   a   three 

o 

hours'  session  the  delegates  separated,  and  the 
Vigilants  admitted  the  policy,  if  not  the  impar- 
tial justice,  of  the  decision. 

Free  again,  after  nearly  seven  weeks  of  con- 
finement,  Terry  took  the  advice  of  the  Execu- 
tive Committee,  and  sought  refuge  on  board  the 
United  States  vessel  John ' Adams ^  which  was 
still  in  the  harbor.  There  he  met  sympathiz- 
ing, admiring  friends.  When  he  was  trans- 
ferred to  the  steamer  bound  to  Sacramento,  a 
gun  was  fired  from  the  Jolin  Adams^  and  cheers 
in  his  honor  rang  out  from  the  men  in  the 
rigging.  Arriving  at  Sacramento,  a  torchlight 
procession  greeted  and  escorted  him  to  the  Or- 
leans Hotel,  where  there  were  congratulatory 
speeches  by  Tod  Robinson,  Colonel  E.  D.  Ba- 
ker, Volney  E.  Howard,  Vincent  E.  Geiger,  Hor- 
ace Smith,  and  others,  and  feasting  until 
morning:.  A  few  weeks  later  he  was  with 
Judge  Murray  "  running  the  Supreme  Court," 
which,  because  Terry  had  been  in  seclusion,  and 
Heydenfelt  was  in  Europe,  in  lack  of  a  quorum, 
had  stood  idle  during  these  stirring  times. 


THE   VIGILANTS    PREPARE   TO    DISBAND.  499 


CHAPTER  XXXm. 

THE  VIGILANCE  COMMITTEE  DISBANDS. 

And  now  (August  12tli)  the  cells  of  Fort  chap. 

Vigilance   were    empty.      The  Vigilants    had', 

evinced  a  moderation  that  was  marvellous,  i856. 
joined  with  a  promptness  in  execution  that  ^^'  ^^ 
held  the  guilty  in  awe.  They  were  disposed  to 
restore  the  power  they  had  used  to  the  hands 
of  those  who  gave  it  them.  But  dare  they  do 
it  ?  Dare  they  let  go  the  tiger  that  they  held 
by  the  ears?  Would  not  the  banished  swarm 
back  and  fill  the  courts  with  complaints  against 
them?  Of  course  their  exiles  who  stayed  away 
would  lie  in  wait  for  the  members  as  they  ar- 
rived at  the  Atlantic  ports,  and  annoy  them 
in  every  conceivable  way.  Billy  Mulligan  had 
already  in  New  York  exercised  his  muscle,  pun- 
ishing some  whom  he  came  across.  Would 
Judge  Terry,  on  the  Supreme  Coui't  bench,  with 
Judge  Murray  ever  ready  to  concur,  let  them 
live  in  peace  ?  Would  not  the  State  employ 
its  authority  to  punish  them  for  past  contempt  ? 
Would  it  be  safe  to  disband  before  the  Legis- 
lature should  meet  and  pass  a  general  Amnesty 


500  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFOENIA. 

CHAP.  Act  ?  What  should  they  do  with  their  arms  ? 
These  were  the  sharp  rocks  long  foreseen  by 
1856.  the  Vigilants,  now  earnestly  desii'ous  of  bring- 
ing their  sliip  to  port  and  beaching  her.  In 
self-protection  the  committee  must  act  shrewdly 
in  this  grave,  final  act  of  their  career. 

Their  opponents  had  always  prophesied  that 
they  would  merge  into  a  political  concern.  Per- 
haps it  was  the  rapidly  approaching  Presiden- 
tial election  that  hastened  them  to  their  con- 
clusions. 

The  two  National  Conventions  had  met  and 
nominated.  The  Democrats  had  put  forward 
James  Buchanan,  of  Pennsylvania ;  the  Repub- 
licans had  chosen  as  their  standard-bearer  John 
C.  Fremont,  of  California.  The  news  had 
reached  the  reputed  State  of  the  latter  while 
Terry  was  in  confinement,  ])ut  had  scarcely  pro- 
duced a  ripple  of  sensation.  The  "  honest  mi- 
ners" in  the  foot-hills  were  easier  as  ever  to  hear 
the  news  "from  below,"  but  it  was  vigilance 
news,  not  political,  for  which  they  were  hungry. 
The  Rej)ul)licans  had  as  yet  no  organization  in 
the  State,  and  leading  Democrats  were  setting 
their  faces  against  the  Vigilants.  The  Young 
Men's  Democratic  Club  refused  to  admit  Vi^il- 
ants  to  membershij),  and  Superintendent  Lott, 
of  the  Branch  Mint,  gave  the  employes  in  that 
establishment  the  alternative  of  going  out  of 
the  Vigilance  Committee,  if  they  were  in  it,  oi', 


THE   VIGILANCE   COMJIITTEE   DISBANDS.  501 

out  of  the  mint.     Clearly,  it  was  time  for  the  chap. 
Vigilance  Committee  to  disband,  or  be  crowded  _^_ 
into  a  folse  position;  yet,  before  dissolving,  it  i856. 
was  natural  to  set  in  operation  some  method 
for  preserving  from  waste  the  advantages  that 
had  been  gained,  and  for  insuring  the  continu- 
ance of  the  reforms  they  had  begun. 

There  had  been  made  several  popular  move- 
ments to  induce  the  city  officers,  from  mayor  to 
constables,  to  resign.  The  Vigilance  Commit- 
tee had  not  openly  given  these  movements  any 
aid,  the  nearest  aj)proach  to  it  being  their  arrest 
of  some  persons  who  were  distui'bing  a  public 
open-air  meeting,  called  to  forward  the  fruitless 
effort.  The  office-holders  clung  to  their  posts, 
and  would  not  think  of  resigning.  Happily, 
however,  an  act  of  ihh  Legislature  consolidating 
the  city  and  county  into  one  municipality  had 
gone  into  effect,  and  there  was  to  be  an  entirely 
new  force  of  municipal  officers  elected  in  No- 
veml)er.  What  the  committee  had  to  do  with 
the  party  that  sprang  into  existence  in  time  to 
take  good  care  of  that  election  may  hereafter 
be  faii'ly  inferred.  So  far  as  the  open  record 
goes,  the  Vigilance  Committee,  as  such,  had 
nothing  to  do  with  it,  for  now  they  proceeded 
to  prove  at  once  the  fears  of  friends  baseless, 
and  the  prophecies  of  foes  false,  that,  whatever 
their  original  intentions,  they  would  grow  enam- 
ored of  power.     They  gave  notice  of  prepara- 


502  THE   HISTOKT   OF    CALIFOENIA. 

CHAP,  lions  to  disband,  and  all  concerned  went  into 

■  training  for  a  demonstration  that  should  carry 

1856.   conviction  to  the  eye,  that  in  their  retii-ement 

they  must  not  be  trifled  with,  nor  trampled  on. 

Monday,  the  18th  of  August,  was  devoted  to 

Aug.  18.  a  grand  final  parade.  Business  was  more  gen- 
erally suspended  than  was  the  custom  on  Sun- 
days or  ordinary  holidays.  From  all  the  vicin- 
ity the  people  swarmed  in,  either  to  see  or  swell 
the  pageantry.  At  noon  there  was  a  review  of 
the  Vigilance  troops,  when  five  thousand  one 
hundred  and  thirty-seven  men,  all  well  armed 
and  thoroughly  equipped,  answered  at  roll-call. 
After  the  review  came  the  procession  through 
the  principal  streets.  It  was  like  a  floral  pro- 
cession or  a  triumphal  march  of  veterans  from 
the  wars,  so  abounded  the  flowers  which 
ladies  showered  on  them  as  they  passed,  so  gay 
was  the  display  of  flags,  so  cheerily  rang  out 
the  music  of  the  bands. 

At  the  head  of  the  column  were  three  com- 
panies of  aitillery,  with  eighteen  pieces  of  can- 
non. Next  came  the  Executive  Committee,  on 
horseback,  twenty-nine  in  number,  with  Presi- 
dent Coleman  and  General  Doane  at  their  head ; 
then  the  mounted  dragoons,  two  hundred  and 
ninety  in  number ;  then  the  medical  staff  of 
forty-nine  physicians  and  surgeons,  mounted ; 
then  one  hundred  and  fifty  members  of  the 
Executive  Committee  of  1851,  carrying  a  flag, 


THE   EXECUTIVE    COMMITTEE'S   ADDRESS.  503 

on  one  side  of  wliicli  was  inscribed :  "  Present-  chap. 
ed  to  the  Vigilance  Committee  of  the  City  of  ,_^ 
San  Francisco,  hy  the  ladies  of  Trinity  Parish,  185(3, 
as  a  testimony  of  their  aj^proval.  Do  right  and 
fear  not.  August  9th,  1851;"  and,  on  the 
other,  "  The  Vigilance  Committee  of  the  City 
of  San  Francisco,  instituted  June  9th,  1851,  for 
the  protection  of  the  citizens  and  residents  of 
San  Francisco. — Art.  I.,  Constitutiony  Next 
came  thirty-three  companies  of  infantry ;  then 
the  vigilance  police ;  and  then  citizens,  mounted. 
On  reaching  the  Sacramento  Street  head-quar- 
ters, which  had  already  been  partially  dis- 
mantled, and  its  sancl-bao-  barricades  removed, 
the  procession  halted,  the  military  broke  up  by 
regiments,  the  companies  returning  to  their 
armories,  which  were  still  guarded  by  trusty 
men,  and  disposing  of  their  arms. 

The  Executive  Committee  now  published  an 
address  to  the  General  Committee,  which,  after 
a  brief  rehearsal  of  the  causes  and  motives  of 
the  organization,  and  a  statement  of  its  results, 
recommended  the  members  to  return  to  their 
avocations,  and  forget  the  animosities  which 
may  have  estranged  them  from  those  good  citi- 
zens who  had  honestly  differed  with  them. 
They  claimed  that  their  errors  had  been  on  the 
side  of  clemency.  Rogues  there  were  still  un- 
punished, but  the  archives  of  the  committee 
contained  a  large  amount  of  testimony  which 


504  THE    HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  could  hereafter  he  used  to  punish  crime,  and 
_■  prevent  political  abuses,  by  the  employment  of 

1856.  those  ordinary  remedies  which  were  not  likely 
to  remain,  as  they  had  been,  inoperative.  They 
advised  the  General  Committee  to  retain  its  or- 
eranization,  l)ut  wdthout  active  service.  For 
themselves  they  promised  to  be  ever  vigilant, 
investiofatino'  and  reforming:  abuses,  urmns:  and 
aiding  the  constituted  authorities  to  the  per- 
formance of  their  duties.  They  would  reserve 
the  discretion  to  reassemble  the  Board  of  Dele- 
gates or  the  general  body,  should  either  of  the 
.  following  occasions  demand :  The  return  of 
the  banished ;  the  necessity  of  protecting  any 
member  from  violence  or  malicious  j)rosecution, 
growing  out  of  acts  performed  by  authority  of 
the  committee ;  the  assault  of  any  citizen, 
should  it  1)6  apparent  that  the  laws  were  ineffi- 
cient for  his  protection  or  for  the  jDursuit  of  the 
offenders ;  or,  in  case  of  a  violation  of  the  purity 
of  the  ballot-box,  or  the  sanctity  of  the  elective 
franchise. 

Two  days  later  the  rooms  of  the  committee 
were  thrown  open  to  the  inspection  of  the  pub- 
lic, and  many  thousands  of  people  embraced 
the  opportunity  to  gratify  their  curiosity  during 
the  three  days  of  the  exhibition.  On  the  first 
floor  they  found  rooms  devoted  to  the  sutler's, 
quai-term aster's,  and  commissary's  departments, 
and  a  large  hall,  chiefly  for  the  use  of  the  artil- 


THE   VIGIL AT^CE    ROOMS    INSPECTED.  505 

lery  and  cavalry  companies.     In  tlie  centre  of  chap. 

.  XXXIII 

the  liall  were  several  brass  field-pieces.  There  _^_" 
were  racks  of  arms  alono;  the  walls,  which  were  1856. 
relieved  by  the  bulletin-boards  and  framed 
muster-rolls  of  the  various  companies,  paintings, 
portraits  of  notables,  among  which  figured  the 
head  of  General  Wool,  flags  presented  by 
ladies,  floral  WTeaths,  and  emblematic  devices 
wrought  in  evergreens.  The  air  was  fragrant 
with  the  bouquets  and  vases  of  flowers  that 
loaded  the  tables. 

On  the  second  floor  were  the  drill-rooms  and 
head-quarters  of  a  few  of  the  infantry  compa- 
nies, most  of  them  renting  armories  in  different 
parts  of  the  city.  Here  many  relics  were 
pointed  out;  the  ropes  with  which  men  had 
been  hano;ed;  the  burMars'  tools  found  on 
Brace;  "  1ihe  pirate  Durkee's  sword" — a  rusty 
blade  used  in  the  capture  of  the  Julia  /  Terry's 
rifle ;  the  original  patent  ballot-box,  and  the 
muster-roll  of  Balie  Peyton's  reserve  corps, 
which  was  never  regularly  attached  to  the 
Vigilance  Committee.  Among  the  arms  dis- 
played was  the  lance  which  a  whaleman  bore, 
in  the  silent  procession  that  captured  the  jail 
on  Sunday  morning. 

The  executive  chamber  on  this  floor  was 
visited,  not  without  a  sense  of  awe,  in  remem- 
brance of  the  grave  deliberations  it  had  wit- 
nessed.   On  a  low  platform  was  the  president's 


506  THE    HISTORY    OF    CALIFOENIA. 

CHAP,  cliair,  behind  a  table  furnislied  witli  bell  and 
■^^■^"^' gavel.     Ill  fi'ont  was  the  secretary's  desk,  and 
1856.  then  the  seats  and  tables  of  members.     Ante- 
rooms for  clerks,  witnesses,  and  sub-committees 
opened  into  this  room. 

The  cells  in  whicb  Casey,  Cora,  Terry,  and 
otker  notables  were  confined,  were  pointed  out, 
on  the  second  floor.  They  were  not  such  apart- 
ments as  men  select,  as  especially  roomy  and 
commodious,  at  first-class  hotels,  but  for  cells 
they  were  tolerable,  being  about  seven  by 
twelve  feet  in  dimensions,  and  ventilated  by 
auofer-holes  and  the  cracks  between  the  shrunk- 
en  boards.  The  visitor  was  told  that  the  former 
occupants  liad  all  the  conveniences  compatible 
with  safe  keeping,  their  meals  being  served  at 
their  order,  from  nei']i:hborin2:  restaurants.  If 
there  were  any  subterranean  paths  or  seci'et 
passages,  through  which  prisoners  were  rushed 
to  the  adjoining  buildings,  to  evade  the  liaheas 
corpus^  they  escaped  the  eyes  of  the  reporters, 
as  well  as  of  the  multitude. 

There  was  still  some  last  work  on  the  hands 
of  the  Executive  Committee.  General  Kibbe, 
Aug.23.  on  the  23d  of  August,  demanded  the  State's 
arms  and  ammunition,  Avhich  were  needed  to 
put  down  hostile  Indians  with,  in  Siskiyou 
County.  Whether  the  committee  doubted  if 
the  Indian  hostilities  were  any  thing  more  than 
a  ruse,  well  calculated  to  enlist  the  sympathies 


WINDING   UP.  507 

of  the  interior  witli  tlie  State  autliorities,  or  chap. 
thought  it  not  yet  safe  to  part  with  the  arms, 
they  refused  to  comply  with  the  demand.  isso. 

On  the  27th,  "  33,  Secretary,"  issued  a  public  Aug.2'r. 
notice  to  certain  parties,  among  whom  was  a 
former  supervisor  of  the  county,  who,  having 
been  notified  to  leave  the  State,  had  fled  to  the 
interior,  giving  them  opportunity  to  depart  by 
either  of  the  next  two  steamers,  never  to  return, 
under  penalty  of  death. 

Durkee  and  Rand  were  still  to  be  tried  in 
the  Federal  Court  for  pii'acy,  in  seizing  the 
State  arms  on  the  hisfh  seas — that  is,  in  San 
P§iblo  Bay.  Both  had  been  admitted  to  bail, 
soon  after  the  oifence  was  committed,  in  the 
sum  of  twenty-five  thousand  dollars  each ;  E. 
W.  Godard,  James  Dowes,  J.  W.  Brittain,  and 
Samuel  Soule  being  bondsmen  for  Durkee,  and 
J.  H.  Fish,  and  T.  J.  L.  Smiley,  O.  Arrington, 
and  Jules  David  for  Rand.  On  granting  the 
application  for  admission  to  bail.  Judge  Hoff- 
man had  remarked  upon  the  violation  of  law  by 
the  Vigilance  Committee,  Avhose  order  for  the 
seizure  was  admitted.  True,  the  peoj^le  sus- 
tained fchem,  he  said,  but,  none  the  less  for  that, 
they  had  trampled  on  the  law. 

As  the  law  and  order  people  expressed  loudly 
their  confidence  that  "the  pirates"  would  be  con- 
victed and  punished,  the  committee  opened  its 


508  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFOElSnA. 

CHAP,  books  again  for  tlie  enrolment  of  members,  and 
■  many  accessions  to  their  roll  were  made. 

1856.  A  grand  jury,  consisting  in  part  of  Sacra- 
mentans,  was  impanelled,  which  found  indict- 
ments. Durkee's  trial  came  first.  All  mem- 
bers of  the  Vigilance  Committee  were  rejected 
from  the  jury,  as  were  all  members  of  the 
Young  Men's  Democratic  Club.  The  testimony 
was  brief;  the  judge  charged  that  unless  it  was 
found  that  the  prisoner  had  taken  the  arms 
feloniously  for  his  own  benefit,  he  could  not  be 
convicted.  The  jury  were  out  four  minutes, 
and  returned  with  a  verdict  of  not  guilty.  The 
District  Attorney  declined  to  prosecute  Kand, 
and  that  peril  was  passed. 

^  And  now  the  Executive  Committee  hauled 

down  their  flag,  closed  entirely  their  rooms,  and 
sold  their  furniture  at  auction.  They  kept 
guard  for  a  while  longer,  but  never  had  occar 
si  on  to  summon  the  Board  of  Delegates,  or  to 
strike  the  bell  for  another  rally. 

Shall  the  Vigilants  be  judged  by  their  fruits  ? 
They  toolc  the  law  into  their  own  hands  and 
executed  it.  Law  had  been  used  as  a  machin- 
ery for  screening  villains  fi'om  punishment. 
They  broke  up  the  combinations  of  the  lawless 
and  set  law  in  an  honored  seat  again.  They 
purified  the  city.  At  first  it  seemed  as  if  this 
had  been  done  at  the  expense  of  the  rest  of  the 
State.     The  dispersal  of  the  city  rogues  led  to 


SUIIMAET    OF   VIGILAKCE    WOEK.  509 

£iu  unusual  number  of  liis-liway  robberies  in  the  giiap. 

"V  'V  \'"  T  TT 

interior;  but  the  villains  soon  learned  how  truly  ._^_^' 
the  whole  State  sympathized  with  the  Vigilants,  1856. 
and  that  they  were  ready  on  the  spur  of  an  ag- 
trravated  case  to  imitate  the  Vis-ilant  method  of 
quickening  the  steps  of  Justice.  They  made 
the  ballot-box  sacred  once  moi'e.  It  was  very 
certain  that  there  would  be  no  moi-e  farces  on 
election-day,  and  that  men  would  be  elected 
by  honest  votes  or  left  in  private  life.  Guilds 
of  crime  and  organized  gangs  of  thieves,  burg- 
lars, and  murderers  were  thoroughly  broken  up. 
It  was  loosely  estimated  that  eight  hundred 
persons,  the  scum  of  society,  had  been  foi'ced  to 
leave  the  country.  To  secure  that  happy  result, 
they  had  arrested  not  a  fe\v  who  were  set  free 
again  on  their  parole.  They  had  inflicted  the 
death-penalty  upon  four:  Casey,  Cora,  Brace, 
and  Hetherington.  The  list  of  those  whom  they 
banished  from  the  State  was  officially  published 
by  the  secretary  "  No,  33,"  on  the  4th  of  Octo- 
ber, as  follows : — 

June  5th,  Charles  P.  Duane,  William  Mul- 
ligan, and  William  alias  Wooley  Kearney,  ship- 
ped by  the  Golden  Age  to  New  York ;  William 
Carr  and  Martin  Gallagher,  shipped  by  the 
bark  Yanikee  to  the  Sandwich  Islands.  June 
20th,  John  Crowe,  shipped  by  the  Sonora  to 
New  Orleans;  William  Lewis,  John  Lawler, 
William  Hamilton,  and  Terence  Kelly,  shipped 


510  THE   HISTORY    OF   CALIFORlSTIA. 

CHAP,  by  tlie  Sierra  Nevada  to  New  York.  July 
^^^^^  5th,  James  Reuben  Maloney,  Alexander  Purffle, 
1856.  alias  Purple,  Thomas  Mulloy,  Daniel  Aldrich, 
and  F.  B.  Cunniugham,  shipped  by  the  John 
L.  Stephens  to  New  York.  Jnly  21st,  James 
White,  James  Burke  alias  Activity,  AVilliam 
McLean,  and  Abraham  Kraft,  shipped  by  the 
Golden  Age  to  New  York.  August  5th,  Ed- 
ward Bulger,  Michael  Brannegan,  and  John 
Cooney,  shipped  by  the  Sonorct  to  New  York. 
September  5th,  John  Thompson,  alias  Liver- 
pool Jack,  and  John  Stephens,  shipped  by  the 
Golden  Age  to  New  York. 

The  following  were  ordered  to  leave  by  the 
steamers  of  August  20th  and  September  5th : — 

W.  Bagley,  James  Henessy,  James  Cusick, 
and  J.  D.  Musgrove. 

Two  of  the  banished  and  one  of  the  executed 
were  members  of  the  Board  of  Supervisors. 

The  Vigilance  Committee  had  not  accom- 
plished their  reforms  by  sprinkling  with  rose- 
water;  they  had  peifonned  a  most  ungracious 
task.  They  drew  a  long  breatk  and  felt  a  grate- 
ful sense  of  relief  when  it  was  clearly  safe  to  re- 
tire again  to  their  private  pursuits,  and  they  had 
laid  again  upon  all  the  people  alike  the  burden 
of  preserving  the  peace  and  maintaining  order. 

We  have  said  that  most  of  the  clergy  either 
went  into  the  Vigilance  movement  lieai-tily,  or 
at  least  stood  aloof  fiom  its  opponents.     There 


REV.    DR.    SCOTT    ON   THE    VIGIL  ANTS.  511 

was  one  notable  exception.  The  Rev.  Dr.  Scott  chap. 
(Presbyterian),  of  Calvary  Church,  was  away  ,_^_,* 
when  Casey  was  executed,  and,  when  he  re-  isse. 
turned  to  town,  he  refused  to  recognize  the  new 
measures  as  just  or  right.  It  was  evident  from 
his  public  prayers  that  he  did  not  believe  in 
them ;  still  lie  did  not  say  any  thing  to  offend 
his  congregation,  nine-tenths  of  whom  sympa- 
thized with,  or  were  themselves  active  Vigilauts. 
Not  until  the  organization  had  disbanded  and 
a  letter  got  back  to  San  Francisco,  which  he 
had  addressed  to  the  editor  of  the  Pacific, 
through  a  Philadelphia  Presbyterian  paper, 
was  it  seen  that  the  Doctor  had  rans^ed  himself 
with  the  opposition,  and  put  himself  on  record 
as  against  it,  while  the  excitement  was  the  great- 
est. Of  course  the  papers  pounced  upon  him ; 
lie  was  drawn  into  a  discussion;  the  whole  mat- 
ter was  argued  over  again,  and  much  hard  feel- 
ing was  produced. 

To  the  scandal  of  everybody,  one  Sabbath 
morning,  an  effigy,  labelled  with  the  Doctor's 
name,  was  found  hanging  by  Calvary  Church 
door.  The  law  and  order  men  said  the  Vigil- 
ants  did  it.  The  Vigilants  denied  it,  asking 
what  they  could  gain  by  hanging  a  bundle  of 
rags ;  and  intimated  that  their  enemies  did  it, 
knowing  it  would  be  charged  on  them.  The 
Doctor  took  the  matter  to  heart  and  resign ed 
his  place.     His  people  refused  to  accept  the  res- 


512  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  io-nation,  the  matter  blew  over,  and  Dr.  Scott 
XXXHI   ^  '  .  . 

_^_,was  spared   to  enjoy  the  popularity  that  one 

185G.  earns  who  buffets  a  strong  tide  and  emerges 
without  damage. 

The  great  political  reform  had  not  been 
achieved  without  some  other  social  disturb- 
ances. All  the  passions  that  are  aroused  by  a 
civil  war  had  been  stirred.  Bosom  friends,  and 
brothers  in  business  together,  divided  and 
avoided  each  other.  A  Vigilant  met  one  whom 
he  had  not  seen  for  several  weeks,  and  extend- 
ed his  hand  with  a  friendly  salutation.  "  There's 
blood  on  it,"  said  the  old  acquaintance,  drawing 
back ;  "  I  don't  know  you,  sir."  The  papers 
were  not  remarkably  violent,  but  they  were 
very  rough  in  their  treatment  of  men  in  public 
life.  They  did  not  much  abuse  each  other,  per- 
haps not  more  than  in  an  ordinary  election 
campaign,  when  party  spirit  runs  high ;  but 
they  published  official  records,  and  raked  up 
forgotten  facts,  and  blurted  out  stories  which 
they  thought  they  Iiad  reason  to  believe  con- 
cerning men  in  pul)lic  positions,  without  the 
slightest  regard  to  the  law  of  libel. 

Allusion  was  made  to  the  general  sympathy 
of  the  people  of  the  interior  of  the  State  with 
the  Vigilants.  It  was  manifested  by  the  tone 
of  the  press ;  by  the  loss  of  subscribers  that 
some  papers  suffered  because  they  spoke  sneer- 
ingly  of  King,  and  would  not  take  back  their 


SYMPATHY   IN   THE    INTEETOS.  513 

words ;  by  the  closing  of  stores  and  the  tolling  chap. 
of  bells  at  Sacramento,  Marysville,  Stockton, 
and  elsewhere,  on  the  day  of  King's  funeral ;  i856. 
and  by  public  meetings  at  San  Jose,  Columbia, 
and  many  other  places,  which  adopted  resolu- 
tions approving  the  committee's  decisive  action. 
In  the  mining  districts  the  public  sentiment  was 
not  at  all  shocked  to  learn  that  men  in  the  Bay 
City  were  taking  a  short  cut  to  justice — they 
were  rather  fond  of  short  cuts  themselves. 
Do^vn  the  coast,  too,  the  people  were  quite  re- 
signed, as  a  random  example  shall  prove: — 
Within  one  week  four  persons  were  taken  out 
of  the  Monterey  jail  and  hanged.  However, 
between  an  infuriated  poj^ulace  met  to  lynch  a 
heinous  transgressor,  and  a  coolly  deliberating, 
thoroughly  organized  Vigilance  Committee, 
there  was  as  wide  a  difference  as  between  a 
mob  and  a  court.  Nothing  similar  to  the  San 
Francisco  Vio-ilance  Committee  was  ever  oreran- 
ized  in  the  interior. 

Hap23y  for  all  that  the  Presidential  election 
was  approaching.  Its  excitement  would  help 
distract  attention  from  the  painful  events  of 
the  past  three  months,  and  give  the  wounds  of 
society  opportunity  to  heal. 

On   the    3d    of  November,  the   committee,  Nov.-s. 
having  surrendered  the  State  arms  to  the  au- 
thorities, the  Governor  ^vithdrew  his  proclama- 
tion of  insurrection,  and  so  the  local  election 

33 


514  THE   HISTOIIT    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  whicli  followed  in  San  Francisco  Lad  no  cloud 
xxxin.^£  illegality  about  it.     Then,  by  swift  degrees, 

185G.  the  subject  dropped  out  of  the  list  of  topics 
that  men  mucli  debated.  The  Democratic  State 
Convention,  that  met  in  the  fall  of  1856,  was 
expected  to  glance  by  resolution  at  the  sub- 
ject, but  wiser  counsels  prevailed,  and  no  men- 
tion of  it  was  made.  In  the  American  State 
Convention  a  resolution  condemnatory  of  tlie 
Vigilants  was  introduced,  but  instantly  tabled 
with  hisses.  Governor  Johnson  unbosomed 
himself  to  the  Legislature  in  1857,  l)ut  most 
that  came  of  it  was  a  controversy  between  His 
Excellency  and  General  Wool.  Governor 
Weller  indulo;ed  in  a  ilinf>  at  the  committee, 
when  in  1855  he  wrote  his  inaugural,  but  in  the 
same  connection  admitted  that  the  necessities 
of  the  times  demanded  something  of  the  sort. 
The  Legislature  has  generally  kept  their  hands 

285g_  off,  only  through  its  relief  bills  for  McGowan, 

I860.  Duaue,  and  others,  showing  that  its  animus  was 
hostile,  though  policy  dictated  forgiving  and 
forgetting.  Occasionally  some  speaker,  young 
to  the  platform  on  the  Pacific  coast,  has  branch- 
ed off  uj^on  the  subject,  but  he  seldom  has 
found  his  audience  demonstrative  about  that 
time.  The  suits  for  damas-es  that  have  been 
brought  by  the  returned  exiles  fill  the  court- 
rooms with  thoughtful,  earnest-looking  men, 
who  say  little,  and  hear  all. 


SUITS    BROUGHT    AGAINST   THE   VIGILANTS.         515 

The  members  of  tLe  committee  were  subject-  chap. 

XXXIII 

ed  to  some  annoyances  at  tlie  East,  Several  of  J_'^„^' 
them  were  assaulted  in  the  streets  of  New  York  i8o7- 
by  the  friends  of  the  banished.  Maloney,  ^  * 
Duane,  and  Mulligan  brought  suits  for  damages 
against  William  T.  Coleman,  and  others  of  the 
committee,  whom  they  found  in  New  York,  but 
the  courts  denied  their  jurisdiction,  and  the 
complainants  obtained  no  satisfaction.  In  1859,  1859- 
Martin  Gallagher  got  a  decree  from  Judge  Hoff- 
man, of  the  United  States  District  Court  in  Cali- 
fornia, awarding  to  him  three  thousand  dollars 
damao-es  and  costs  ao-ainst  the  master  of  the 
bark  Yankee.  The  brothers  Green  brought 
suit  separately  for  damages  in  the  Twelfth  Dis- 
trict Court  of  California.  The  first  case  that 
came  to  trial  was  that  of  John  L.  Green,  before 
Judge  Norton,  in  1860.  The  complainant  al-  i860. 
leged  fifty  thousand  dollars  damages  by  the  in- 
jury to  his  own  health  from  imprisonment  in 
the  committee's  jajl,  and  by  the  death  of  his 
wife,  which,  he  said,  was  hastened  by  the  shock 
it  gave  her.  The  trial  occupied  several  days, 
and,  while  it  lasted,  was  the  sensation  of  the 
town.  The  jmy  gave  a  verdict  for  the  plain- 
tiff, awarding  the  damages  at  one  hundred  and 
fifty  dollars,  which  left  the  plaintiff  to  pay  his 
own  costs,  and  made  it  necessary  for  him  to 
pay  the  jurors'  fees.  The  result  was  not  so 
flattering  as  to  encourage  the  brothers  to  urge 


516  THE    HISTORY    OF    CALIFOEiaA. 

CHAP,  their  cases,  and  they  have  not  yet  been  deter- 
xxxin.    •     -1 
^__^_,  mined. 

18G0.  Duane,  returning  to  the  State  in  1860,  filed 
libels  in  the  United  States  District  Court 
against  Captain  Goodall,  the  master  of  the 
steam-tug  Hercules^  which  conveyed  him,  when 
banished,  manacled  to  the  Golden  Age,  off  the 
mouth  of  San  Francisco  harbor;  against  Cap- 
tain Watkins,  of  the  steamer  Age,  which  took 
Lim  to  Acapulco ;  and  against  Captain  Pear- 
son, of  the  steamer  t7o7^7^  L.  Stephens,  who,  find- 
ing him  on  board,  a  stow-away,  trying  to  return 
to  San  Francisco  from  Acapulco,  transferred 
him  io  the  steamer  Sonora,  bound  to  Panama. 
The  aggregate  damages  claimed  were  one  hun- 
dred and  twenty-five  thousand  dollars.  In  the 
case  of  Pearson,  Judge  Hoffman  decreed  four 

1^4.  thousand  dollars  damages  in  1864,  and  Circuit 
Judge  Field  affirmed  the  decision.  The  other 
cases  were  understood  to  l)e  compromised,  at 
rates  sufficient  to  give  the  returned  exile  a  com- 
fortable living. 

Several  of  the  banished  manifested  an  over- 
weening desire  to  return  to  San  Frsncisco,  as  if 
mischief  done  in  any  other  place  lacked  its 
I'elish,  and  reform  nowhere  else  were  half  as 
meritorious.  Some  of  them  were  helped  back 
by  Vigilants  themselves  years  later,  and,  while 
some  became  toleiably  fair  citizens,  practising 
their  old  tricks  only  at  j^rmar^  elections,  which. 


BETUKNIXa  EXILES.  517 

the  law  does  not  recognize,  and  where  conse-  chap. 
quently  stuffing  and  colonizing  are  not  misde-   ___, 
meanors,  except  in  the  moral  sense,  no  one  of    isM. 
them  has  so  distinguished  himself  for  either  pri- 
vate or  public  virtues,  as  to  start  a  suspicion  of 
any  gross  injustice  in  his  sentence. 

By  common  consent,  old  San  Franciscans 
still  avoid  discussing  the  revolution  of  1856  in 
miscellaneous  company,  as  one  on  which  neither 
party  has  tempered  its  acerbity,  unprofitable, 
and  a  quarrel-breeder.  Occasionally,  some  one 
in  his  wrath  calls  a  Vigilant  "  a  strano-ler  "  and 
the  other  retorts  upon  him  as  one  of  the  "  law 
and  murder  party."  It  would  have  seemed 
scarcely  time  yet  to  write  the  history  of  these 
doings,  but  that,  in  the  great  events  that  have 
lately  convulsed  our  country,  these  local  matters, 
that  used  to  hold  the  peaceful,  law-abiding 
world  breathless,  will  be  forgotten,  if  the  record 
is  much  longer  delayed;  and  then,  again,  a  large 
portion  of  the  people  now  in  the  State  were  not 
here  in  1856,  and  they,  a  sort  of  premature  pos- 
terity, have  a  right  to  know  what  was  going 
on  in  the  home  that  was  preparing  for  them,  , 
before  their  arrival. 


518  THE  HISTORY   OF   CALIFOENIA. 


CHAPTER    XXXIV. 

F RE  SERVING   THE  FRUITS   OF  THE  REFORM. 

CHAP.      About  a  week  before  the  Vigilance  Commit. 

^_^^^'  tee  disbanded,  there  was  a  mass  meeting  of  cit- 
1856.  izens  in  front  of  the  American  Exchange  in  San 
"^*  Francisco,  to  organize  a  party,  irrespective  of  all 
political  leanings,  which  should  rescue  the  city 
offices  from  the  clutch  of  irresponsible  men,  and 
keep  unsullied  its  rights — in  short,  a  People's 
Reform  Party.  The  names  of  the  men  who 
figured  in  it  were  not  those  of  prominent  Vigil- 
ants,  though  its  opponents  charge  that  it  was 
the  heir  of  the  Vigilance  Committee's  opinions, 
and  was  inaugurated,  in  degree,  at  least,  for 
their  protection. 

Ira  P.  Rankin  was  called  to  the  chair,  a  pre- 
vious nominee  havino;  been  voted  down.  ]\Ir. 
Rankin  admitted  that  he  was  not  sure  whether 
he  was  in  favor  of  the  objects  of  the  meeting, 
but  as  it  was  a  people's  gathering,  he  would 
obey  theii'  orders.  A  preamble  and  resolutions 
were  introduced.  These  charged  that  the  po- 
litical parties,  as  organized,  had  bred  many  of 
their  troubles.     They  had  tried  the  American 


THE   people's   PAKTT   OP.GATaZATION.  519 

party,  but  discovered  in  it  no  higher  grade  of  c?iap. 
political  integrity  than  in  the  old  parties.  Now 
the  politicians  must  stand  back ;  the  people  i856. 
would  attend  to  their  own  affairs.  With  the 
Presidential  nominations  they  had  nothing  to 
do,  with  their  local  affairs  every  thing.  The 
practical  proposition  of  the  resolutions  was  to 
appoint  a  committee  of  twenty-one,  among 
whom  were  named  J.  B.  Thomas,  E.  H.  Wash- 
burn, Louis  McLean,  Frederick  Billings,  A.  B. 
Forbes,  and  T.  O.  Larkin,  to  encourage  and 
recommend  the  election  of  members  of  the  Leg- 
islature, pledged  to  reform,  and  to  nominate 
city  and  county  officers. 

If,  as  was  averred,  the  meeting  was  packed 
by  the  Vigilants,  it  is  very  curious  that  it  was 
not  better  managed,  for  at  an  early  hour  it  was 
captured  by  the  Republicans,  and  its  object 
almost  frustrated.  Trenor  W.  Park  opposed 
nominating  until  the  other  parties  had  com- 
pleted their  tickets.  After  his  speech,  the  res- 
olutions were  put  and  lost.  William  Duer 
essayed  to  save  them,  but  he  had  already  com- 
mitted himself  so  openly  to  the  Know  Nothings 
that  his  appeal  lost  its  force.  Others  spoke, 
but  it  was  wasting  words,  until  E.  H.  Wash- 
burn took  the  stand,  and,  with  an  address 
which  turned  the  tide  of  feeling,  induced  a  re- 
consideration, and  finally  the  adoption  of  the 


620  THl   mSTORY    OF    CALIFORXIA. 

CHAP,  policy  of  the  resolutions.     The  committee  of 
twenty-one  was  appointed. 

185G.  In  good  time  it  submitted  a  reform  ticket  to 
the  peoj)le  for  their  votes,  and  on  election-day 
it  was  carried  by  a  large  majority. 

The  Consolidation  Act  was  now  in  force  in 
San  Francisco.  It  greatly  reduced  the  powers 
of  the  city  legislature,  limited  the  tax  that 
might  be  levied  for  each  specific  object,  required 
the  scrupulous  separation  of  the  funds,  prohib- 
ited the  use  of  money  in  one  fund  for  objects 
legitimately  covered  by  another  fund,  and  tied 
the  officers  down  to  a  very  strict  accountability. 
This  act,  devised  by  Horace  Haw^es,  was  adopted 
b}^  a  Legislature  w^hich  got  little  credit  for  good 
intentions  towards  the  city,  but  it  w^as  an  admi- 
rable measure  for  the  thriftless  times.  It  has 
been  said,  in  later  days,  that  to  this  act  rather 
than  to  the  election  of  the  people's  tickets  is 
due  the  good  order  and  improved  financial  con- 
dition of  the  city.  That  this  was  not  so  is  clear 
enough  from  a  solitary  consideration  :  Sacra- 
mento obtained  a  similar  charter  for  its  use, 
but  failed  to  put  good  men  in  office,  and  to 
watch  them  wdth  all  diligence.  So,  while  San 
Francisco  from  that  time  prospered  in  her 
finances,  Sacramento  dashed  on  in  her  old 
career  until  she  stood  on  the  verge  of  bank- 
ruptcy. 

Nov.       The  newly-elected   city  and  county  officers 


THE   KETORM    CITY    GOVERTs^MENT.  521 

were  for  tlie  most  part  ffood  men ;  and  those  chap. 

xxxrv 
in  whom  the  people  afterwards  concluded  that  ,_^_' 

they  were  mistaken,  they  watched  so  narrowly  i856. 
that  abuses  were  infrequent,  corruption  went 
out  of  practice,  and  economy  became  the  rule 
in  office.  When  the  gas-bills  were  complained 
of  as  unreasonably  large,  and  the  gas  company 
denied  that  it  could  make  them  less,  the  re- 
formers brought  tallow  dips  into  the  super- 
visors' chamber,  and  transacted  business  by 
their  flickering  light.  When  the  district  judges 
asked  for  stoves  to  warm  tlieir  court-rooms, 
the  supervisors  reminded  them  that,  in  the  fa- 
vored climate  of  California,  stoves  were  a  costly 
luxury,  and  fuel  an  unnecessary  bill  of  expense. 
City  improvements — the  reduction  of  the  streets 
over  the  irregular  surface  of  the  city  to  the 
official  grade — had  been  the  ruin  of  many  who 
unfortunately  owned  real  estate.  The  new  au- 
thorities were,  by  the  new  charter  and  their 
own  pledges,  required  to  stop  improving,  except 
as  property-owners  petitioned  for  it.  The  city 
did  not  spread  itself  quite  so  rapidly  as  before, 
but  bankruptcy  was  avoided  by  the  delay.  It 
was  estimated  that  not  less  than  eight  hundred 
persons — the  scum  of  the  earth's  villany — had 
left  the  city,  and  most  of  them  the  State,  during 
the  Vigilance  Committee's  rule.  B-elieved  of 
this  great  burden,  the  criminal  courts  travelled 
easily  in  the  road  of  justice,  and  rogues  found 


522  THE    HISTOEY    OF    CALIFOElSnA. 

CHAP,  that  crime  was  the  s^^dft  forerunner  of  punish- 

XXXIV  •  •  . 

^_^__,'  ment.  It  remains  so  to  this  day.  The  police  are 
1856.  few  in  number,  but  active  and  vigilant.  There 
have,  indeed,  been  some  mysterious  murders, 
of  which  the  perpetrators  were  never  discov- 
ered ;  still,  in  no  other  city  of  its  size  in  the 
Union  is  there  a  more  cheerful  assurance  that 
life  is  safe  from  violence,  and  property  from 
thieves  and  robbers.  The  period  was  not  by 
any  means  supj^osed  to  be  within  "millennial 
limits,  yet  the  city  rapidly  became  famous  for 
its  economy,  its  good  order,  and  its  financial 
responsibility. 

The  extent  of  the  financial  reform  will  be 
obvious  from  a  few  comparisons.  The  revolu- 
tion occurred  in  1856.  The  year  before  that, 
things  were  at  the  worst.  The  second  year 
after  it,  the  reform  was  fairly  fruit-bearing. 
The  city's  bills  for  advertising  and  stationery, 
in  1855,  were  $65,231;  in  1858,  $2,727.  As- 
sessment expenses,  in  1855,  were  $45,011;  in 
1858,  $9,100.  Election  expenses,  in  1855,  were 
$22,920;  in  1858,  nothing.  The  fire  depart- 
ment, in  1855,  cost  $263,120;  in  1858  it  was 
in  better  condition  for  $29,972.  The  hospital 
department,  in  1855,  cost  $278,328;  in  1858, 
the  sick  were  better  cared  for  at  $43,880.  For 
extra  legal  services,  in  1855,  the  city  was  taxed 
$31,821 ;  in  1858  the  amount  was  a  little  over 
one-fourth  that  sum.     The  police  and  prisoners 


FINANCES   BEFOEE    AND    AFTER    REFOEM.  523 

cost   the   city,   in    1855,   $236,690;    in    1858,  chap. 

.    XXXIV 

$59,943.     The  salaries  of  officers  amounted,  in  ^.^^' 

1858,  to  little  more  than  one-fourth  as  much  as  1854- 

•  •         1861 

in  1855.  The  annual  expenditures  of  the  city 
and  county  were  as  follows:  In  1854,  $1,831,- 
825;  in  1855,  $2,646,190;  in  1856,  $856,120; 
in    1857,    $353,292;    in    1858,   $366,427;    in 

1859,  480,895;  in  1860,  $706,719;  in  1861, 
$512,896. 

The  largest  item  of  expenditure  every  year, 
with  a  solitary  exception,  since  1856,  has  been 
paid  in  satisfaction  of  old  debts  contracted  dur- 
ing the  old  regime ;  and  in  1863  nearly  one- 
third  of  all  the  city  taxes  went  to  meet  the  in-  , 
terest  of  these  debts.  The  city  has  no  floating 
debt.  Every  demand  against  it  is  paid  upon 
presentation. 

Each  successive  year,  as  the  municipal  elec- 
tion draws  nigh,  several  thousands  of  the  people 
petition  the  nominating  committees  of  the  two 
preceding  years  to  nominate  a  committee  as  its 
successor.  This  new  committee  pledges  its 
members,  as  its  predecessors  did,  to  receive  no 
nomination  in  a  given  number  of  years  follow- 
ing. This  system  avoids  the  primary  elections 
of  the  political  parties,  where  trickery  and 
money  shape  tickets  for  honest  men  to  indorse 
at  the  legalized  election,  and  experience  seems 
to  show  it  the  best  that  has  been  devised.  The 
nominating  committee  thus  selected,  canvasses 


524  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFORlSriA, 

CHAP,  quietly  and  secretly  the  merits  of  candidates, 
"     ■  and  gives  the  result  m  a  full  municipal  ticket. 

185G.  Except  in  the  ease  of  here  and  there  an  indi- 
vidual, these  tickets  have  always  been  elected. 
The  people  rule  San  Francisco,  and  in  conse- 
quence it  has  abroad,  as  at  home,  the  reputa- 
tion of  being  the  best-governed  city  in  the 
Union, 


THE   STATE    CREDIT   BRUISED.  525 


CHAPTER  XXXV. 

FINANCIAL  BREAKERS. 

But  just  as  the  people  were  beginning  to  chap. 
manage  their  own  affairs  creditably  in  San 
Francisco,  the  financial  credit  of  the  State  re-  isso. 
ceived  a  most  damaging  blow.  When  the 
interest  on  the  State  bonds  came  due  at  New 
York,  July,  1850,  no  funds  were  there  to  meet 
it.  The  Treasurer  had  punctually  deposited 
enough  with  Palmer,  Cook  <fe  Co.  for  the 
purpose,  and  that  firm  alleged  that  its  agent, 
ex-Congressman  Wright,  one  of  the  partners, 
had  instructions  to  attend  to  the  punctual  pay- 
ment, but  he  had  no  money  when  the  fatal  day 
arrived,  and  the  State  was  disgraced.  The 
same  thing  had  happened  in  1854,  when  Dun- 
can, Sherman  <fe  Co.  came  to  the  rescue,  and 
saved  California's  honor;  but  the  Legislature 
allowed  Palmer,  Cook  <fe  Co.  to  reimburse  that 
house  months  afterwards  without  interest.  Of 
course  no  one  acquainted  with  that  story  would 
be  in  haste  to  sacrifice  himself  now. 

The  Treasurer  scraped  together  what  he  could, 
and  as  soon  as  he  could,  and,  forwarding  it  to 


526  THE   HISTOEY    OF    CALIFOENIA. 

CHAP.  New  York,  paid  the  interest,  and  the  affair  re- 
,_^^_  ■  dounded  more  to  the  discredit  of  the  bankers 
1856-  than  of  the  State.  But  Californiaus  were  much 
^  '  stirred  up  about  it,  and  demanded  that  there 
should  be  no  more  of  bankers  goin^  between 
them  and  their  creditors — taking  their  money 
on  deposit,  with  a  pledge  of  expressing  it  sea- 
sonably, and  instead  turning  it  to  electioneering 
account.  For  by  this  time  it  was  known  that 
Palmer,  Cook  &  Co.  were  Fremont's  bankers,  as 
well  as  California's,  and  it  was  suspected  that 
they  were  furnishing  money  for  the  Presidential 
campaign,  with  the  Mariposa  mine  as  security. 
But  the  bankers  were  not  alone  to  l)lame. 
The  Constitution  prohibited  the  creation  of  a 
debt  exceeding  three  hundred  thousand  dollars ; 
yet  the  excess  of  State  expenditures  above  the 
receipts  into  the  treasury  for  the  year  ending 
with  June,  1856,  was  more  than  double  that 
amount.  By  New  Year's  Day,  1857,  the  State 
debt  was  over  four  million  dollars.  It  had  been 
contracted  to  carry  on  the  legislative,  judicial, 
and  executive  functions  of  the  Government  on  an 
extravagant  scale,  for  hospital,  prison,  and 
school  purposes,  for  taking  the  census  of  1852, 
for  printing,  and  for  Indian  war  expenses.  But 
whatever  its  object,  it  was  contracted  in  clear 
violation  of  the  organic  law.  The  Supreme 
Court  decided  that  so  much  of  it  as  was  in  ex- 
cess of  three  hundred  thousand  dollars  was  un- 


Al^   UNCONSTITUTIONAL   DEBT.  527 

constitutional  and  void,  and  that,  thouoh  the  chap, 

•  XXXV 

Legislature  should  tax  the  people  to  pay  it,  that  .^^ 
tax  would  be  illegal,  and  its  collection  could  i856- 
not  be  enforced. 

Here  was  a  frightful  vision  of  repudiation 
presented  to  the  good  people,  who  gloried  in  an 
exclusive  metallic  currency,  and  that  they  had 
no  bill-emitting  banks.  Now  they  began  to 
doubt  if  they  had  not  been  too  fast  in  rushing 
into  the  responsibilities  of  a  State.  Except 
Texas,  all  the  other  Western  States  had  been 
kept  a  while  in  Territorial  leading-strings,  and 
during  their  patient  waiting  had  their  exj)enses 
paid  out  of  the  national  treasury.  California 
had  set  up  housekeeping  without  a  dollar  to 
luiy  furniture,  pay  rent,  or  hire  service  with. 
To  run  the  State  at  the  start,  she  issued  bonds, 
liearing  interest  at  three  per  cent,  a  month. 
AATien  she  redeemed  them  in  1856,  the  interest 
had  far  outgrown  the  principal.  Had  not  the 
Constitution  provided  too  much  government 
machinery  for  the  little  governing  that  was 
wanted  ? — too  grand  an  engine  for  a  craft  that 
had  l)ut  a  handful  of  a  crew  to  man  it  ?  Too 
many  officers,  too  high  salaries,  exorbitant  fees, 
extravagant  jobs ;  too  frequent  and  too  long  leg- 
islative sessions;  swarms  about  the  treasury, 
clamoring  that  party  services  gave  them  a  right 
to  live  off  the  State — these  were  sucking  the  life 
out  of  the  commonwealth.  The  people  susj^ected 


52,8  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  that  they  had  been  too  ambitious;  that  they 

^_^  would  better  have  waited  a  while  in  Territorial 

1856-  pupilage. 

1858,  -g^^^  regrets  were  in  vain.  Besides,  it  had 
never  been  a  question  of  admission  as  a  State 
or  remaining  a  Territory.  Congress  refused 
California  any  kind  of  government ;  it  was  a 
choice  between  a  State  oro-anization  or  nothino^. 
Indeed,  if  they  had  another  commonwealth  to 
found  under  similar  circumstances,  they  would 
do  the  job  in  the  same  way.  They  would  pre- 
fer a  State's  dignity  to  a  Territory's  economy 
and  thrift — genteel  sovereignty  rather  than  full- 
fed  dej^endence — officers  of  their  choice,  bad  as 
they  might  be,  rather  than  those  of  other  men's 
appointment.  Certainly  the  love  of  the  Union 
was  strengthened  by  early  admission  into  it ; 
and  whatever  Califoi-nia  may  have  lost  in 
money  by  her  haste,  she  gained  in  patriotism. 
As  to  the  Union,  none  could  doubt  that  it  lost 
nothing  and  made  much  by  California's  early 
welcome  to  all  its  honors. 

The  Supreme  Court  had  indicated  a  solitary 
way  for  the  State's  escape  from  the  disgrace  of 
repudiation.  That  was  for  the  question  of  as- 
suming the  unconstitutional  debt  to  be  sub- 
mitted to  the  i:>eople.  The  Legislature  quicldy 
passed  an  act  of  submission,  and  the  people,  by 
overwhelming  numl)ei"s,  voted  to  pay  every 
dollar  of  the  debt.     But  it  was  one  thing  cheer- 


THE   DEBT   ASSUJIED    BY    THE  PEOPLE.  520 

fully  to  assume  the  debt  illesrally  contracted  by  cba.p. 
careless  servants,  and  anotlier  to  pay  it.  -— v— ^ 

Governor  Johnson  zealously  urged  retrench-  1806- 
ment,  and  the  Legislature  vigorously  essayed  re-  ^^^^' 
form.  Year  by  year,  hoping  to  abolish  the  scrip 
system,  the  debt  had  been  funded  at  seven  per 
cent,  annual  interest.  Still,  there  was  a  great 
deal  of  scrip  afloat,  some  of  which,  being  unsup- 
ported by  any  satisfactory  vouchers,  was  re- 
fused payment.  A  board  of  examiners  was 
created,  to  pass  upon  all  claims  and  comptrol- 
ler's warrants  required,  where  the  cash  could 
not  be  paid  for  authorized  expenditures.  The 
Governor  made  one  more  effort  to  induce  Con- 
gress to  restore  the  "civil  fund"  to  the  State, 
but  it  was  vain.  The  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States  had  decided  the  action  of  the 
Federal  authorities  in  collecting  customs  after 
the  cession  of  California  as  a  conquered  prov- 
ince of  Mexico,  and  while  it  was  under  the 
sway  of  military  officers,  though  in  a  time  of 
peace,  warrantable  and  right;  so  that  long- 
cberished  resource  for  extinguishing  the  debt 
was  abandoned.  The  appropriation  by  Con- 
gress towards  meeting  the  Indian  war  debt  w'as 
ample  to  have  covered  the  whole  claim ;  but 
Jefferson  Davis,  Secretary  of  War,  refused  to 
transfer  the  money  called  for  by  the  appropria- 
tion, and  required  the  production  of  original 
accounts   and  vouchers,  many  of  which  were 


530  THE   HISTORY    OF   CALIFOENIA. 

CHAP.  lost.     Under  this  delay  the  debt  grew  by  the 

^_^^"  accumulation  of  interest,  and  the  State  was  at 

185(5-  some  expense  to  obtain  an  additional  appro- 

^  ■  priation.     The   effort  was  fruitless,  and  there 

was  nothing  better  than  to  divide  what  had 

been  appropriated,  so  far  as  it  would  go  among 

the  claimants. 

Free,  fearless  taxation  was  resorted  to  as  the 
only  means  left  to  reduce  the  debt,  but  expen- 
ditui^es,  after  all  the  legislative  pruning,  were 
enormous.  It  was  hard  to  conquer  the  extrav- 
agant habits  of  early  days.  Governor  Downey 
estimated  the  local  indebtedness  of  the  cities 
and  counties,  on  the  first  of  January,  1861,  at 
near  ten  million  dollars;  and  Governor  Stan- 
ford quoted  the  State  debt  in  the  beginning  of 
1863  at  over  five  and  a  half  millions. 

For  neither  the  local  nor  the  State  debts  was 
there  much  to  show;  a  few  court-houses  and 
jails,  a  few  public  halls,  a  State-prison  at  San 
Quentin  inadequate  to  its  purpose,  an  insane 
as}dum  at  Stockton,  not  half  large  enough  for 
the  number  of  its  inmates,  the  foundaticms  of  a 
capitol  at  Sacramento,  a  small  State  library, 
I'ichest  in  law  books,  a  reform-school  building 
at  Marysville,  witli  a  handful  of  boys  in  its 
echoino;  lialls — one  Avouders  where  the  millions 
of  borrowed  money  went.  Salaries,  fees,  inter- 
est consumed  a  large  share  of  it ;  some  chari- 
table institution*^,   mainly  maintained  by  the 


THE  DEBT  ASSUMED  BY  THE  PEOPLE.     531 

contributions  of  cliurches  and  individuals,  en-  chap. 

XXXV 

joyed  a  meagre  portion;   peace  with  Indians  ,_^^_^ 
cost  sometlaing  almost  every  year,  and  the  pets    ises. 
of  party  and  the  shai'pers  of  the  lol^by  took 
toll  of  all  they  could  reach. 

The  resources  of  the  State  are  so  abundant,  1865. 
the  prosj^erity  of  the  inhabitants  so  general, 
that  the  debt  does  not  much  trouble  the  people 
now.  Its  interest  is  met  with  punctuality. 
The  bonds  of  the  State  and  of  most  of  the  cities 
stand  well  in  the  market,  and  our  general  credit 
is  excellent  at  home  and  abroad. 

But  the  debt  rather  waxes  than  wanes,  and 
there  is  no  such  wholesome  impatience  to  be 
rid  of  it  as  a  proper  regard  to  economy  would 
require.  During  the  war  of  the  rebellion,  a 
new  source  of  indebtedness  was  necessarily 
created.  Bounties  to  soldiers,  arming  and 
drilling  the  militia,  all  means  of  defence  against 
foreign  foes  or  traitors  at  home,  were  welcomed 
by  those  w^ho  most  cherished  thrift.  Yet  each 
new  outlay  demanded  sharper  watch  that  none 
be  wasted,  closer  scrutiny  that  disbursing 
agents  make  no  illegal  commissions. 


532  THE   HISTORY     OF    CALIFOKNIA. 


CHAPTER  XXXVI. 

LAND   TITLES. 

CHAP.    ,  It  is  scarcely  possible  to  overstate  tlie  annoy- 

XXXVI 

^^^^,^'ances  that  Califoriiians  have  suffered  in  the 
1850-  past  from  the  uncertainty  of  land  titles.  Be- 
fore the  country  came  into  the  possession  of 
the  United  States  a  very  considerable  portion 
of  the  best  lands  for  agricultural  purposes,  and 
of  the  region  about  the  bays,  including  the 
natural  sites  for  many  future  cities,  had  been 
granted  to  individuals  by  the  Mexican  author- 
ities. They  valued  their  gifts  very  cheaply, 
because  there  were  few  competitors,  and 
bounded  them  most  loosely.  The  grant  might 
convey  a  definite  number  of  square  leagues 
within  a  certain  valley,  or  inside  the  exterior 
limits  of  a  named  rancho,  leaving  the  grantee  to 
locate  his  tract  anywhere  Avithin  those  limits. 
As  little  accurate  surveying  was  done  and  lit- 
tle attention  paid  to  topography,  grants  often 
overlapped  and  encroached  upon  each  other, 
and  sometimes  a  person  was  given  all  the 
gores,  corners,  and  odd  pieces  of  some  favorite 
tract,  not   appropriated   by  grants  of  earlier 


CONFLICTING    LAND    CLAIMS.  533 

date.     Though  there  had  been  never  a  fraudu-  chap. 
lent  claim  for  a  rood  of  ground,  the  lax  method  "^^^^^^ 
of  Mexican  conveyancing  would  have  insured  i850- 
a  ricli  harvest  of  litigation,  for,  by  the  treaty  ^^^^' 
of  Guadalupe  Hidalgo,  the  American  Govern- 
ment agreed  not  to  disturb  existing  titles,  and 
to  respect  all  grants  derived  through  the  Mexi- 
can or  Spanish  authorities. 

The  gold  discovery  opened  the  gates  to  a 
flood  of  population  v^hich  must  have  homes  of 
some  sort,  and  land  to  build  their  homes  on. 
When  the  new-comers  asked  who  owned  the 
soil,  they  were  distracted  with  the  variety  of 
answers.  One  authority  named  a  distant  ranch- 
man as  the  proprietor.  Another  pointed  out 
the  man  whose  cattle  rano-ed  over  it.  Another 
quoted  a  clamorous  claimant,  but  admitted  that 
his  title  was  generally  supposed  to  be  fraudu- 
lent— for,  as  lands  came  into  demand,  there 
sprang  up  a  populous  tribe  of  claimants,  with 
manufactured  papers  sufficiently  resembling  the 
genuine  in  the  breadth  of  boundaries  and  un- 
certainty of  extent  and  location  called  for,  and, 
perhaps,  more  careful  than  they  to  bear  abun- 
dance of  seals  and  si2:natures. 

Most  of  the  American  settlers  bou2:ht  the 
lots  they  coveted  of  the  claimant  presumed  to 
have  the  best  title ;  others  were  satisfied  to 
buy  the  cheapest,  and  still  others  put  up  their 
fences  and  cabins  as  if  settling  on  Government 


534  THE   HISTOEY    OF  CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  land,  asking  no  one's  permission,  confident  that 
■  possession  and  a  rifle  would  give  them  as  good 
1851.  a  chance  as  was  to  be  bought.  They  ^vhre  not 
at  liberty  to  wait  for  conflicting  claims  to  be 
adjudicated,  for  the  homeless  must  have  shel- 
ter, the  maikets  must  be  supplied  with  vege- 
tables and  grain,  and  there  was  no  movement 
to  determine  by  law  who  owned  the  land,  until 
busy  cities  replaced  the  drowsy  solitude  of  the 
coast,  and  a  vigorous  American  State  was  im- 
proving the  j^remises  that  so  long  lay  waste  as 
a  sleepy  province  of  Mexico. 

In  1851,  three  years  after  the  treaty  of  peace 
1851-  was   sio:ned,    Cono-ress   enacted   a  law  for  the 

1856.  o         '  o 

settlement  of  land  claims  in  California — it 
might  with  propriety  have  Ijeen  entitled  an  act 
to  retard  their  settlement.  Colonel  Benton  in- 
sisted that  patents  ought  to  issue  to  all  lands 
whose  titles  should  be  found  perfect  and  fairly 
recorded  at  Mexico ;  but  he  was  oveiTuled,  and 
a  commission  was  created  to  sit  in  San  Fran- 
cisco, and  decide  the  validity  of  claims  accord- 
ing to  the  usages,  laws,  and  customs  of  the 
Government  from  which  the  titles  were  de- 
rived. 

Before  this  Board  of  Land  Commissioners  all 
claimants  under  Spanish  or  Mexican  grants 
must  present  their  evidences  of  title  within  two 
years  of  the  date  of  the  passage  of  the  act,  or 
the  land  would  be  deemed  part  of  the  domain 


THE   LAISTD    COJTMISSIONEES.  535 

of  the  United  States.     The  board  must  decide  char 

V"  V'V'T/'T 

upon  the  validity  of  the  claim  within  thirty  ^J_^_^' 
days  after  its  presentation.  The  claimant,  or  i85(5. 
the  district  attorney,  could  appeal  from  the 
board's  decision  to  the  United  States  District 
Court,  and  from  that  to  the  Federal  Supreme 
Court.  *When  a  claim  was  finally  confirmed, 
unless  other  claimants  intervened,  a  patent  for 
the  land  was  to  issue,  and  the  surveyor-general 
was  to  "  locate  "  it.  From  his  survey  the  appeal 
was  to  the  Department  of  the  Interior,  at 
Washington. 

For  commissioners,  President  Fillmore  ap- 
pointed Harry  L,  Thornton,  Augustus  Thomp- 
son, and  Alpheus  L.  Felch.  His  Democratic 
successor  thrust  them  out,  and  appointed  others 
in  their  places. 

As  neither  commissioners  nor  counsel  were 
familiar  with  Mexican  law  and  practice,  tedious 
delays  and  grave  blunders  were  unavoidable. 
The  board,  before  its  final  adjournment,  March, 
1856,  to  which  time  the  amended  law  extended 
its  existence,  had  some  eight  hundred  claims 
presented.  More  than  half  of  them  it  con- 
firmed ;  some,  for  obvious  fraud,  it  rejected,  and 
some  for  gross  informalities ;  while  some,  be- 
cause they  called  for  land,  afterwards  granted  in 
a  large  tract  to  the  same  parties,  were  with- 
drawn. 

The  area  of  land  called  for  by  the  claims  pre- 


53-6  THE   HISTORY    OF   CALIFOENIA. 

CHAP,  sented  was  nineteen  thousand  one  hundred  and 
,_^^^_'  forty-eight  square  miles.  Many  of  the  rejected 
1856.  claims  were  allowed,  and  confirmed  in  the  dis- 
trict conrts,  which  also  finally  rejected  some 
very  important  ones  that  the  board  confirmed. 
The  labor  is  by  no  means  ended  yet.  Some 
stubbarn  cases  are  still  2:)ending  in  the  district 
courts;  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States 
has  its  docket  still  burdened  with  appeals,  and 
Congress  at  every  session  is  invoked  for  vspecial 
enactments  to  relieve  some  party  who  suffers 
by  virtue  of  a  decision  that  the  testimony  made 
inevitable. 

Indeed,  it  is  scarcely  possible  that  every  final 
decision  should  not  work  a  hardship  to  some- 
body. Every  genuine  claim  that  is  confirmed 
requires  a  large  bod}^  of  squatters  and  holders 
under  adverse  titles  to  l)e  ousted.  Seldom  can 
a  survey  be  approved  for  a  claim  whose  gen- 
uineness is  no  surprise,  without  forfeiting  some 
honest  settler's  improvements.  It  was  a  griev- 
ance loudly  complained  of,  that  an  appeal  from 
the  survey  made  necessary  a  journey  to  Wash- 
ington to  watch  proceedings  under  a  subordi- 
nate of  the  Land  Office,  and  many  a  disap- 
pointed claimant  has  come  home,  alleging  that 
the  party  which  accommodated  the  clerk  with 
the  largest  loan  won  the  decision. 

Few  of  the  original  grantees  have  found  their 
fortune  in  the  grants  that  seemed  princely  to 


JUDGE  black's  sensation  lettee.  537 

the  landless.     Thouo'li  tlieir  claims  were  con-  chap. 

«  •  •  XXXVI 

firmed,  they  were  generally  fought  w^ith  ruinous  ^1^ 
obstinacy.     Enormous  counsel  fees,  huge  bills  isao. 
of  cost,  money  hired  at  frightful  interest,  and  its 
payment  secured  by  mortgage  upon  mortgage, 
have  compelled  many  an  original  gi^antee   to 
lament  the  day  that  he  asked  for  a  grant,  and 
when  his  patent  has  come,  it  was  not  for  him, 
l3ut  for  his  lawyers.     Some  relief  was  afforded 
when  the  Supreme  Court,  in  1858,  decided  that  1858. 
the  district  courts  had  power  to  supervise  the 
surveys,  and  so  spare  the  trip  to  Washington. 
Congress  lias  tried  to  relieve  sufferers  by  open- 
ing cases  once  closed,  but  every  such  opening 
has  involved  another  set  of  claimants  in  litiga- 
tion. 

President  Buchanan,  in  1860,  sent  a  message  i860, 
to  the  House  of  Kepresentatives,  accompanied 
by  some  correspondence  concerning  this  sub- 
ject, that  caused  a  sensation.  Apj)ropriatious7 
amounting  to  $114,000,  had  been  made  by  the 
Thirty-fourth  and  Thirty-fifth  Congresses  for 
legal  assistance,  and  other  expenditures,  in  the 
disposal  of  private  land  claims  in  California. 
The  House  of  the  Thirty-sixtb  Congress  asked 
for  a  detailed  statement  of  these  expenditures, 
and  Mr.  Buchanan  furnislied  it. 

Judge  Black,  of  Pennsylvania,  was  Attorney- 
General.  His  letters  said  it  was  incredible  that 
BO  many  grants  could  have  been  made  in  good 


538  THE   UISTOET    OF   CALITORNIA. 

OHAP.  faitli  by  any  Government  as  were  claimed  in 

XXXVI  .         * .  .  ■  . 

,__^^,'  California,  under  titles,  real  or  fabricated,  from 
I860.  Governors  Alvarado,  Micheltorena,  or  Pio  Pico. 
They  covered  a  very  large  portion  of  the  best 
mineral  and  as^ricultural  res^ions.  There  seem- 
ed  to  be  not  an  island  or  place  for  a  fort,  a 
custom-house,  hospital,  or  post-office  but  must 
be  purchased  on  his  own  terms  from  some  pri- 
vate claimant.  But  they  were  supported  by  an 
array  of  testimony  that  had  already  secured 
their  confirmation  by  the  Land  Commissioners 
and  the  district  courts,  and  rendered  defence 
hopeless  unless  extraordinary  means  for  inves- 
tigation were  resorted  to.  The  examination  of 
records  in  the  city  of  Mexico,  "led  to  the  con- 
clusion that  even  the  archives  of  that  Govern- 
ment had,  in  some  way,  become  an  instrument 
of  sanctionins:  frauds  asfainst  the  United  States." 
In  February,  1858,  Edwin  M.  Stanton  (since 
United  States  Secretary  of  War)  was  sent  to 
San  Francisco  as  S23ecial  counsel  for  the  Govern- 
ment in  pending  cases,  and  especially  charged 
to  resist  the  Limantour  claim.  The  scattered 
archives  of  the  Mexican  Government  were 
hunted  out  of  their  careless  concealment, 
whether  in  public  offices  or  in  the  keeping  of 
ex-officials,  and  deposited  with  the  Surveyor- 
General.  Official  correspondence,  seals,  and 
suspicious  grants  were  copied  photographically, 
and  important  documents  translated  for  the  use 


FEAUDULENT    LAND    CLAIMS.  539 

of  the  court  at  Washington.  Irresistible  proof  chap. 
was  obtained  "  that  tliere  had  been  an  organ-  J_^_" 
ized  system  of  fabricating:  land  titles  carried  on  i860. 
for  a  long  time  in  California  by  Mexican  offi- 
cials; that  forgery  and  perjury  had  been  re- 
duced to  a  regular  occupation  ;  that  the  making 
of  false  grants,  with  the  subornation  of  false 
witnesses  to  prove  them,,  had  become  a  trade 
and  a  business."  "  The  richest  part  of  San 
Francisco  was  found  to  be  covered  by  no  less 
than  live  different  grants,  every  one  of  them 
forged  after  the  conquest :  Sacramento,  Marys- 
ville,  Stockton,  and  Petaluma  were  claimed  on 
titles  no  better."  The  value  of  the  lands 
claimed  under  fraudulent  titles  was  estimated 
at  not  less  than  one  hundred  and  fifty  million 
dollars!  More  than  two-thirds  of  them  (in 
value)  had  already  been  exposed  and  defeated. 
He  enumerated  some  of  the  cases  disposed 
of  in  favor  of  the  Grovernment.  Prominent  in 
the  list  was  Limantour's  claim  for  two  square 
leagues  of  San  Francisco  land,  and  for  Alcatras, 
the  Farallones,  and  Fort  Point.  Mr.  Stanton, 
before  the  District  Court,  produced  overwhelm- 
ing proofs  of  its  fraud.  Its  rejection  by  Judge 
Hoffman  has  already  been  noticed.  Limantour 
was  prosecuted  for  forgery  and  setting  up  a 
claim  known  to  be  false.  He  gave  bail  in  the 
sum  of  thirty-five  thousand  dollars  for  his  ap- 
pearance, and  left  the  country.     To  this  day  his 


640  THE   HISTORY   OF   CALIFOllNIA. 

CHAP,  sureties  have  not  paid  tbe  forfeited  bonds. 
,_^_' Captain  Sutter,  under  two  grants,  claimed  thir- 
1860.  ty-five  square  leagues  in  the  Sacramento  Valley. 
One  of  them,  made  by  Alvarado,  in  1841,  for 
eleven  leagues,  was  genuine.  The  other,  pro- 
fessing to  be  from  Micheltorena,  for  twenty-two 
leagues,  covering  the  sites  of  Sacramento  and 
Marysville,  and  embracing  portions  of  five 
counties,  was  shown  to  have  been  made,  if  by 
Micheltorena  at  all,  after  a  successful  revolution 
had  expelled  him  from  his  capital.  The  Su- 
preme Court  rejected  it.  In  this  case,  as  in  many 
others,  not  the  slightest  suspicion  was  cast  on  the 
claimant  who  held  in  good  faith,  and  in  perfect 
honesty  conveyed  large  tracts  covered  by  his 
title  to  third  parties.  Nye's  claim  to  four 
leagues  on  the  Sacramento  was  a  sample  of 
claims  under  the  general  permission  granted  by 
Micheltorena,  after  his  expulsion  from  office,  to 
Sutter  to  issue  certificates  of  title  to  persons  who 
had  previously  petitioned  for  land.  The  Supreme 
Court  treated  the  general  title  as  a  nullity.  The 
claim  of  Fuentes,  a  young  nephew  of  Micheltore- 
na, for  eleven  leagues  near  the  Mission  of  San 
Jose,  was  rejected  when  the  Supreme  Court  was 
shown  that,  though  it  was  dated  at  Monterey, 
1843,  the  Governor  whose  simiature  was  at- 
tached  had  never  at  that  time  been  to  Monterey. 
The  claim  of  the  two  brothers  of  General  Valle- 
jo,  better  known  as  the  Teschemacher  claim,  for 


FEAUDULENT   LAND    CLAIMS.  541 

sixteen  leagues,  was  rejected  as  spurious.     The  chap. 
claim  of  Santillau,  a  priest  at  the  Mission  Dolo-^_^_^' 
res,  to  the  site  of  San  Francisco,  purported  to   i860. 
be  derived  from  a  grant  by  Pio  Pico  in  1846. 
It  was  prosecuted  in  the  name  of  James  R. 
Bolton,  and  held  by  Palmer,  Cook  <fc  Co.   and 
a    Philadelphia   company,  when  the  Supreme 
Court,  to  the  great  joy  of  San  Franciscans,  re- 
versed the  judgment  of  the   commissioners  and 
the   District    Court,    and   rejected   it.      Other 
claims  of  less  note  and  value  it  rejected,  some 
for  lack  of  proof  of  their  genuineness,  some  for 
clearly  discovered  tbough  adroitly  j^erpetrated 
fraud. 

The  Attorney-General's  figures,  as  quoted 
above,  especially  his  estimate  of  the  value  of  the 
land  saved  from  the  operation  of  spurious  titles, 
were  recklessly  extravagant;  but  though  he 
wrote  as  an  attorney,  and  not  as  a  judge,  even 
he  does  not  picture  too  vividly  the  audacity 
and  gigantic  proportions  of  the  frauds  at- 
tempted. 

The  chaotic  confusion  concernins:  land  titles 
in  California  that  prevailed  a  few  years  ago  can 
never  again  return.  Most  of  the  imjDortaut  claims 
haye  been  determined  by  the  highest  judicial 
authorities,  and  Congress  grows  less  and  less  dis- 
posed to  reopen  cases  adjudicated,  or  by  enact- 
ment to  disturb  what  is  apparently  firm.  Most 
that  now  remains  is  to  settle  and  appoint  the 


542  THE   IIISTOEY    OF    CALIFOENIA. 

CHAP,  boundaries  of  grants  confimied.  A  man  may  at 
last  buy  a  homestead  lot  in  the  city,  or  a  farm 

I860,  in  the  country,  with  some  comfortable  assurance 
that,  if  he  has  the  proper  searches  for  title  made, 
he  is  not  simi^ly  purchasing  a  lawsuit. 


THE    STATE   PRISON.  543 


CHAPTER    XXXVn. 

BITTER  PARTY  STRIFES. 

WiTHiK  the  eight  years  after  the  Vigilance  chap. 

•  XXXVII 

revolution,  California  enjoyed  or  suffered  the 
control  of  four  different  political  parties :  the  i856- 
Know  Nothing,  Democratic,  Republican,  and  •^^^*- 
Union.  The  Know  Nothing,  or  American,  as 
it  called  itself,  rode  into  power  on  the  wave  of 
reform.  Governor  Johnson  kept  faith  with  the 
reformers,  and  under  his  spur  the  Legislature 
did  really  apply  the  pruning-knife  to  govern- 
mental expenses  with  effect.  But  his  adminis- 
tration committed  an  eo^reorious  blunder  in  the 
matter  of  the  State  Prison. 

In  1851,  by  an  unfortunate  contract  for  a 
term  of  ten  years,  that  institution  was  turned 
over  to  the  control  of  James  M.  Estill.  There 
were  so  many  abuses,  so  many  escapes  of  pris- 
oners, sometimes  encouraged  if  not  even  planned 
by  the  keepers,  so  much  and  such  well-grounded 
complaint,  that  the  Legislature  declared  the 
lease  forfeited,  and  the  State  officers  resumed 
its  management.  They  erected  a  wall  twenty 
feet  high  about  the  premises  at  San  Quentin, 


r)i4  THE   HISTOP.Y    OF    CALIFORiaA. 

CHAP,  enclosing  a  square  of  five  hundred  feet  on  each 
■  side,  and  initiated  many  reforms. 

1856.-  Still  the  concern  did  not  prosper,  and  the 
Leofislature  of  1856,  doubtless  thinkiuG"  it  wise 
economy,  made  a  new  lease  of  the  prison  build- 
ings and  labor  to  the  same  Estill,  he  engaging 
to  maintain  and  keep  safely  the  convicts,  and 
the  State  to  pay  him  ten  thousand  dollars  a 
year  for  five  years.  Very  soon  he  assigned  the 
lease  to  one  McCauley  at  half  the  agreed  rate 
of  compensation.  The  abuses  now  were  worse 
than  ever.  Prisoners  were  maltreated  and  con- 
tinually escaping. 

The  Le2:islature  ao-ain  declared  the  lease  for- 
feitecl,  and  Governer  Weller,  in  the  spring  of 
1858,  took  forcible  possession  of  the  j^roperty, 
and  gave  the  keys  to  a  new  warden.  The  as- 
signee prosecuted  for  his  rights  and  for  dam- 
ages, and  the  Supreme  Court  sustained  him. 
A  compromise  was  effected,  but  its  terms  w^ere 
not  punctually  met  on  the  part  of  the  State. 
Finally,  a  l:)onus  was  j^aid  the  assignee  in  Gov- 
ernor Downey's  day,  and,  though  there  have 
been  several  wholesale  escaj^es,  the  manage- 
ment has  improved  ever  since,  and,  but  for  the 
lack  of  room  to  classify  prisoners  and  keep  the 
adepts  in  crime  separate  from  mere  novices,  it 
is  in  tolerable  condition. 

1857.  The  Administration  suffered  also  from  the 
scandal  of  a  defalcation  by  one  of  its  principal 


A    DEFALCATING   OFFICER.  545 

officers.  There  was  suddenly  missino:  from  tlie  chap 
treasuiy  some  one  hundred  and  forty  thousand ',_^^_,  * 
dolhirs.  Dr.  Bates,  the  Treasurer,  pretended  1857. 
that  it  was  set  aside  to  pay  the  interest  on  the 
debt,  but  all  he  could  show  for  it  was  a  penal 
bond  of  the  Pacific  Express  Company,  engaging 
to  pa}^  one  hundred  and  twenty-four  thousand 
dollars  into  the  treasury  in  default  of  the  pay- 
ment of  the  interest  due  in  New  York  in  July. 
Bates  was  impeached,  conyicted,  and  declared 
by  the  Senate  disqualified  to  hold  office.  He 
was  indicted,  too,  for  embezzlement,  stood  two 
or  three  trials,  but  by  virtue  of  a  change  of 
venue,  was  finally  acquitted.  His  sureties  were 
prosecuted,  and  judgment  recovered  against 
them,  but  they  j^roved  insolvent,  and  the  State 
abandoned  the  claim. 

Know  Nothingism  was  a  temporary  expedi- 
ent, and  short-lived.  Here,  as  elsewhere,  it 
died  before  the  term  of  its  first  victors  expired. 
Johnson  sent  his  second  annual  message  (1857) 
to  a  Legislature  which  on  joint  ballot  had  forty- 
six  Democratic  majority. 

As  Gwin's  seat  in  the  United  States  Senate 
had  been  vacant  nearly  two  years,  and  Weller's 
was  just  about  to  be,  tlierejdiQuid  be  no  diffi- 
culty, if  the  two.  factions  would  be  satisfied  each 
with  an.-  abundant  prize._  Broderick  was  king 
of  caucus  that  -yeaii_jQji_th&-l 0th  of  January  Jan.io. 
(1857),  ia-loint^  convention,  he  had  seventy- 


54:6  THE    mSTORY    OF    CALIFOEXIA. 

CPiAP.  nine  votes,  Et  C.  Slimlcy  fourteen,  and  J.  W. 
^_^  ■  Coffroth  seventeen,  on  the  first  ballot,  and  Brod- 
1857.    erick  was  declared  elected-JInited  States  Sena- 
te jvt4L_£ll__theplace_tlia^  vacate 

But  Avlio  should  he  his  colleague  ?  who  oc- 
cupy for  four  years  Gwin's  long- vacant  seat  ? 

T^mrlpripV  jyp"t^'l  >Tnr1o'p.  Mp-CoHcIp^  hut  CauCUS, 

rebelling,  refused  Ijiin.  Gwiu,  Broderick's  bit- 
ter enemy,  bade  high  foiMt!  Milton  S.  Latham 
wanted  it,  who,  as  mjmbeFof  Congress,  and  es- 
peciallyTas  Collector-j^f-thaPort  of  San  Fran- 
cisco, had  earned  a  fair  reputation.  Both  paid 
court  to  Broderick,  for  the  decision  lay  with 
him.  Gwin  professed  great  disgust  of  Federal 
patronage  ;  meddling  with  it  had  caused  all  his 
^voes ;  men  whom  lie  helped  to  office  were  work- 
ing for  Latham ;  he  would  be  glad  to  give  up 
all  pretensions  to  any  claim  in  the  appoint- 
ments. But  JBroderick  distrusted  him.  La- 
tham, with  reservations  about  two  or  three 
trivial  places,  had  assured  Broderick's  friends 
that  they  should  have  his  aid  to  obtain  what- 
ever they  wanted,  and  it  was  understood  that 
Latham  was  to  be  the  lucky  man. 

Suddenly  Frank  Tilford,  candidate  for  the 
San  Francisco  collectorship,  told  Broderick  that 
he  missed  a  letter  from  his  desk  in  which  La- 
tham had  pledged  his  support  of  him  for  the 
position;  he   suspected  that  Latham  had  sur- 


BRODEEICK  MAKES  A  COLLEAGUE  FOR  THE  SEI^ATE.       54*7 

reptitiously  regained  possession  of  it.     On  this,   chap. 
Broderick  professed  that  all  foith  in  Latham  _^_ ' 
deserted  him,  and  he  ordered  caucus  to  give  its    1857. 
vote  for  Gwin. 

When  Broderick  told  this  story  on  the  stump 
two  years  afterwards,  Latham  indignantly  de- 
nied the  petty  larceny,  and  Tilford  in  writing 
indorsed  the  denial,  saying  that  he  found  the 
letter  next  morning,  on  closer  search,  where  he 
left  it. 

Latham's  version  of  his  defeat  was  this :  Jan.  13. 
Broderick  seat  for  him  to  visit  him  at  the 
"Mag^nolia,"  in  Sacramento.  He  declined  to 
go  to  his  room,  but  consented  to  meet  him  at 
David  Mahoney's  room,  in  the  same  house.  So 
at  night,  between  eleven  and  a  half  and  two 
o'clock,  the  Senator  elect,  and  the  young  aspi- 
rant for  senatorial  honors,  met.  Broderick  told 
Latham  he  would  make  him  Senator  if  he  would 
write  a  full  relinquishment  of  all  his  claims 
upon  the  Federal  patronage.  Latham  answered 
that  he  should  lose  his  selfrespect  if  he  did  it, 
and  declined.  Upon  that  they  separated,  but 
Estill,  of  infragrant  State  Prison  memory,  es- 
sayed to  compromise  their  differences.  Finally, 
Latham  consented  that  if  Estill  would  write,  he 
would  sign  the  required  relinquishment,  except 
as  to  three  persons  and  places.  Brod crick's  ul- 
timatum was  an  unconditional  surrender,  which 
Latham  refused. 


548  THE   HISTOKY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP.  Caucus  obeyed  orders  promptly.  At  its  next 
^_^_,  ■  session,  on  tlie  fourteenth  ballot,  Gwin  received 
1857.  forty-seven  votes  (seven  more  than  was  neces- 
sary to  a  choice),  Latham  but  twenty-six.  On 
the  13th  of  January,  the  Legislative  Joint  Con- 
vention met  airain,  when  the  first  ballot  stood : 
Gmn,  eighty-one ;  H.  A.  Crabb,  seventeen ;  A. 
M.  Sargent,  eleven;  E.  C.  Stanley,  one;  O.  L. 
Shafter,  one ;  so  Gwin  was  at  last  elected  his 
own  successor,  to  serve  four  years. 

As  if  to  convince  even  the  simplest  that  it 
was  not  Broderick's  magnanimity,  but  a  most 
corrupt  and  disgraceful  bargain  that  restored 
Gwin  to  the  Senate,  there  appeared  in  print,  a 
day  or  two  later,  an  astounding  "  Letter  to  the 
People,"  bearing  even  date  with  his  election, 
and  signed  with  Gwin's  name.  In  it  occurred 
the  following  remarkable  sentences :  "  A  rep- 
resentative whose  evil  destiny  it  is  to  be  the 
indirect  dispenser  of  Federal  patronage,  will 
strangely  miscalculate  if  he  exi)ects  to  evade 
the  malice  of  disappointed  men.  To  the  Federal 
patronage  in  the  State  do  I  attribute,  in  a  great 
degree,  the  malice  and  hostile  energy  which, 
after  years  of  faithful  service,  have  nearly  cost 
me  the  indorsement  of  a  re-election  to  the  United 
States  Senate.  From  patronage,  then,  and  the 
curse  it  entails,  I  shall  gladly  in  future  turn, 
and  my  sole  labor  and  ambition  shall  be  to 
deserve  well  of  the  State,  and  to  justify  the 


GWIX    CONFESSES   HIS   INDEBTEDNESS.  549 

choice  of  the  Legislature  in  honoring  me  a  chap. 
second  time  as  a  representative  of  its  interests. 
*  ♦  *  *  J  l^ave  hinted  at  aid  other  than  i857. 
that  received  from  those  whom  I  reo-arded  as 
friends.  I  refer  to  the  timely  assistance  accord- 
ed to  me  by  Mr.  Broderick  and  his  friends. 
Although  at  one  time  a  rival,  and  recognizing 
in  him  a  fierce  but  manly  opj^onent,  I  do  not 
hesitate  to  acknowledge,  in  this  public  manner, 
his  forgetfulness  of  all  grounds  of  dissension 
and  hostility,  in  what  he  conceives  to  be  a  step 
necessary  to  allay  the  strifes  and  discords  which 
had  distracted  the  party  and  the  State.  To 
him  I  conceive,  in  a  great  degree,  my  election  is 
due ;  and  I  feel  bound  to  him  and  them  in  com- 
mon efforts  to  unite  and  heal,  where  the  result 
heretofore  has  been  to  break  down  and  de- 
stroy." 

That  spring,  there  was  a  grand  hegira  of  the 
politicians  to  Washington,  to  secure  the  spoils 
that  Buchanan  had  to  distribute.  But  at  the 
national  capital  Broderick's  rod  had  no  magic 
power,  while  G win's  open  house  and  profuse 
hospitality,  and  Mrs.  Gwin^s  fancy  balls  and 
gay  receptions,  had  all  the  effect  that  such 
things  aim  to  produce  on  impressible  senators 
and  cabinet  officers.  Though  Gwin  may  have 
kept  the  promise  of  his  letter,  the  choicest  of 
the  Federal  patronage  for  California  came  out 
with  the  senior  Senator's  brand  upon  it.    Wash- 


550  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALITOENIA. 

CH^vp.  iDO'ton,  Avliom  Broderick  did  not  love,  was  given 
xxxvn     ^      ^  ,  ,  .      ° 

,_,^^_^  ■  the  collectorsliip  at  San  Francisco.     Bigler  was 

1857.  exiled  with  a  mission  to  Chili. 

At  home,  in  the  fall,  Broderick  tried  to  get 
McCorkle  nominated  for  Governor  on  an  Anti- 
Lecompton  platform,  but  failed.  Weller  re- 
ceived the  nomination,  and  was  elected  by  the 
undivided  Democracy  over  Edward  Stanley, 
the  candidate  of  the  Whiofs. 

The  Legislature  chosen  that  fall  was  largely 

1858.  Democratic.  Meeting  in  1858,  it  adopted  a 
resolution  indorsins;  the  President's  Kansas 
policy,  and  instructing  the  State's  senators  to 
vote  accordingly. 

There  was  occasion  this  j^ear  to  try  the  virtue 
of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law,  one  of  the  series  of 
Compromise  Acts  of  1850.  A  Mr.  Stovall,  from 
Mississippi,  came  into  the  State  with  his  slave, 
Archy,  in  the  summer  of  1857.  Though  he  pro- 
fessed that  he  did  not  intend  to  stay  long,  he 
so  far  settled  as  to  engage  for  a  while  as  teacher 
of  a  private  school  in  Sacramento.  In  Janu- 
ary, he  prepared  to  send  the  slave  South  again, 
when  suddenly  Archy  assumed  his  liberty,  and 
declined  to  go.  Stovall  had  the  boy  arrested ; 
but  the  friends  of  the  alleged  slave  sued  out  a 
writ  of  habeas  corpus,  under  which  he  was  dis- 
charged, on  the  ground  that  Stovall  was  not  a 
traveller,  and  Archy  not  a  fugitive,  under  the 
act  of  1850.     Listantly  that  he  was  discharged, 


THE   FUGITIVE    SLAVE   ACT.  551 

he  was  rearrested,  and  his  case  hastened  up  to   ceap. 

.  .  XXXVII 

the  Supreme  Court,  where  Chief-Justice  Bur-  i^_^_' 
nett  gave  the  Law  to  the  negro,  and,  Terry  con-  1858. 
curring,  the  negro  to  his  claimant.  Stovall  now 
"brought  his  chattel  to  San  Francisco,  and  took 
the  steamer  for  home ;  but  when  off  the  Heads, 
both  were  arrested  and  brought  back — the  for- 
mer on  a  charge  of  kidnapping ;  the  latter  by 
writ  of  liabeas  corpus.  The  U.  S.  Commissioner, 
George  Pen  Johnston,  though  a  man  of  strong 
Southern  sympathies,  heard  the  case,  when  it 
came  up  before  him,  with  iuipartiality.  Colonel 
Baker  befriended  Archy;  J.  A.  Hardy  (who 
was  impeached,  in  1862,  for  using  treasonable 
language)  pleaded  tlie  cause  of  Stovall.  After 
an  exciting  trial,  in  course  of  which  counsel  came 
once  to  the  verge  of  a  physical  collision,  and  the 
blacks  in  town  were  very  much  stirred  up,  the 
negro  was  set  free. 

The  second  Legislature  during  Weller's  gu-  1859. 
bernatorial  term  ^vas  more  tliau  simply  Demo- 
cratic;  it  was  chivalric  and  very  "high-toned" 
on  the  Lecompton  question.  By  resolution  it 
denounced  a  speech  made  by  Broderick  in  the 
Senate — in  which  he  had  spoken  ^vith  great 
freedom  of  the  Executive — as  insultine:  to  the 
nation  and  humiliating  to  the  people. 

So  soon  as  Congress  adjourned  the  two  sena- 
tors came  home  to  have  the  fioht  over  a2:ain,  on 
the  soil  native  to  it.     Gwin  brought  with  him 


552  TIIE   HISTOEY   OF   CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  the  ffood  wishes  of  the  Administration ;  Brod- 

XXXVII       . 

^_^^_^  ■  erick  the  sympathies  of  the  Douglas  Democrats 
1859.  and  the  Kepablicans,  who  had  fraternized  on 
many  matters,  though  maintaining  distinctly 
party  lines.  In  Administrative  circles,  Weller 
was  the  candidate  of  the  ultra  Southern  men, 
Latham  of  the  Conservatives,  and  in  Conven- 
tion Latham  won  the  nomination  for  Governor. 
For  Congressmen,  Burch  and  Scott  wei'e  nomi- 
nated by  the  same  convention.  The  anti-Le- 
compton  Convention  nominated  John  Curiy  for 
Governor,  and  Joseph  C.  McKibben  and  S.  A. 
Booker  for  Congress.  The  Republicans  nomi- 
nated Leland  Stanford  for  Governor,  and  Colo- 
nel E.  H.  Baker  and  P.  H.  Sibley  for  Congress. 
Here  there  was  ample  occasion  for  the  hostile 
senators  to  get  a  verdict,  principle  enough  in- 
volved in  the  contest  to  dignify  it,  personal  ani- 
mosity enough  to  make  sure  that  each  would 
struggle  to  the  extent  of  his  power  for  victory. 
Gwin  had  on  his  side  the  patronage  of  the  Gov- 
ernment, the  custom-house,  the  post-office,  the 
mint,  each  of  \vhich  had  a  long  list  of  employes, 
and  a  list  ten  times  longer  of  expectants  of 
places  there.  Besides,  he  had  the  odor  of  regu- 
larity, so  dear  to  Democrats.  Bioderick  had 
the  sympathies  of  the  Republicans,  but  their 
votes  were  thouorht  to  be  mort2:a2:ed  to  candi- 
dates  of  their  own.  As  Avas  the  Democratic 
custom,  the  candidates  went  into  the  outskirts, 


BRODEEICK  DECLINES  PEELET's  CHALLENGE.    553 

avoidiiio;  San  Francisco,  and  ev^en  Sacramento,  as  chap. 

.  .  .  XXXVII 

long  as  possible,  evidently  dreading  the  phouog-  _^^_, ' 
raphers  and  the  press  of  the  chief  cities.  1859. 

But  at  the  very  opening  of  the  campaign,  an  "'^^  ' 
affair  occurred  which  was  augury  of  a  bitter 
strife  coming.  Judge  Terry  was  a  defeated  can- 
didate before  the  Lecompton  Convention  for  a 
renomination  to  the  supreme  bench.  In  a 
speecii  professing  resignation  to  the  will  of  the 
majority,  he  said  some  harsh  things  of  Broder- 
ick,  intimating  that  while  it  was  true  enough 
that  he  rallied  to  the  call  of  a  Douglas,  it  was 
not  of  Stephen  A.,  but  of  Frederick  Douglass, 
the  eloquent  mulatto.  Broderick  read  the  re- 
23ort  of  this  speecli  at  the  breakfast-table  of  the 
International  Hotel  in  San  Fi'aucisco,  and  as  he 
laid  aside  the  paper  uttered  some  remark  not 
complimentary  to  Terry.  D.  W.  Perley  heard 
the  remark,  and  replied  to  it.  Broderick  re- 
torted. Perley,  seeing  there  were  ladies  at  the 
table,  withdrew,  and  soon  after  sent  a  hostile 
message  to  Broderick  l)y  the  hands  of  S.  H. 
Brooks,  Lecompton  candidate  for  State  Comp- 
troller. E.  J.  C.  Kewen,  arrivino;  the  same 
night,  relieved  Brooks,  and  himself  took  on  the 
part  of  Perley's  friend.  Broderick,  because 
there  was  some  informality  about  it,  chose  to 
send  his  reply — it  was  dated  June  29th,  1859 — 
to  Perley  direct.  He  said  the  publicity  given 
to  the  affair  put  it  out  of  his  power  to  afford 


554  THE   HISTORY   OF   CALIFOEJ^IA. 

CHAP,  the  satisfaction  demanded.  He  had  told  him 
^  ■  in  the  presence  of  gentlemen,  at  the  time  of  the 
1859.  alleged  insult,  that  he  would  not  accept  a  chal- 
lenge from  him,  who,  within  a  few  days,  had 
made  oath  that  he  was  a  subject  of  Great  Brit- 
ain, and,  consequently,  had  no  political  rights 
to  be  aftected  by  giving  or  receiving  a  chal- 
lenge. "For  many  years,"  wrote  Broderick, 
"  and  up  to  the  time  of  my  elevation  to  t lie  posi- 
tion I  now  occupy,  it  was  well  known  that  I 
would  not  have  avoided  any  issue  of  the  char- 
acter proposed.  Jf  compelled  to  accept  a  chal- 
lenge, it  could  only  be  with  a  gentleman  holding 
a  position  equally  elevated  and  responsible,  an<l 
there  are  no  circumstances  which  could  induce 
me  even  to  do  thus  during  the  pendency  of  the 
present  canvass.  When  I  authorized  the  an- 
nouncement that  I  would  address  the  people  of 
California  during  the  campaign,  it  Avas  suggest- 
ed that  efforts  would  be  made  to  force  me  into 
difficulties,  and  I  determined  to  take  no  notice 
of  attacks  from  any  source  during  the  canvass. 
If  I  were  to  accept  your  challenge,  there  are  prob- 
ably many  other  gentlemen  who  would  seek 
similar  oj^portunities  for  hostile  meetings,  for 
the  23urpose  of  accomplishing  a  political  object, 
or  to  obtain  public  notoriety.  I  cannot  affoi'd, 
at  the  present  time,  to  descend  to  a  violation 
of  the  Constitution  and  the  State  laws  to 
subserve  either  their  or  your  purposes." 


BKODEEICK   ON   THE   STUMP.  555 

Perley  then   issued   a   card  to   tlie   public,   chap. 

•  •  '  -t  XXXVII 

pronouncing  Broderick's  letter  a  tissue  of  false-  v_^^_  ' 
hoods,  a   mean,  quibbling,   dastardly  evasion,   i859. 
and  expressing  tbe  opinion  that  Broderick  was 
as  devoid  of  courage  as  of  principle,  and  bad  no 
longer  any  right  to  call  himself  a  gentleman. 

Broderick  made  his  first  stump  speech  at 
Placerville,  July  9th.  He  recited  the  points  of  July, 
his  career  in  California.  He  was  elected  to  the 
first  Senate  of  the  State,  and  in  1851  re-elected 
for  two  years,  and  chosen  by  that  body  to  pre- 
side over  it,  when  the  Lieutenant-Governor, 
McDougall,  was  called  to  fill  the  chair  of  Gov- 
ernor, made  vacant  by  Burnett's  resignation. 
In  1852  and  1853  he  was  chairman  of  the  State 
Central  Committee.  In  1852  he  was  a  candi- 
date for  the  United  States  Senate,  but  caucus 
preferred  the  claims  of  Weller.  In  1854  he 
was  again  a  candidate,  and  caucus  gave  him 
the  nomination,  but  a  combination  of  Ameri- 
cans, Old  Line  Whigs,  and  Federal  ofiice- 
holders  defeated  him.  He  protested  that  "  no 
thieving  bill,  or  corrupt  measure,  designed  to 
rob  the  treasury,  ever  received  support  or  coun- 
tenance" from  him. 

Said  he,  "  I  have  lived  among  you  for  more 
than  ten  years.  From  the  commencement,  and 
during  the  period  when  the  gross  vices  of  pub- 
lic men  were  winked  at  or  forgotten,  on  account 
of  the  general  laxity  of  morals  that  prevailed 


556  THE   HISTOEY    OF   CALIFORT^IA. 

CHAP,  in  society  unleavened  by  tlie  presence  of 
virtuous  woman,  no  man,  living  or  dead,  ever 
1859.  saw  me  at  a  gaming-table,  or  in  a  brothel,  or 
under  the  influence  of  liquors,  or  ever  knew  me 
to  refuse  to  pay  an  honest  debt.  No  one  ever 
dared  to  charge  me  with  being  influenced  by 
pecuniary  considerations  in  any  vote  which  I 
gave."  He  had  been  told  that  the  San  Fran- 
cisco Viofilance  Committee  undertook  to  inves- 
tigate  his  histoiy.  The  principles  of  that 
organization  he  did  not  approve ;  he  had  no 
sympathy  with  them ;  but  many  men  in  it  had 
since  become  friendly.  He  had  sought  to  reduce 
the  salaries  of  Federal  officers  in  California.  He 
claimed  credit  for  defeating  the  Lime  Point 
swindle ;  read  letters  from  Governor  Weller, 
urging  the  purchase  of  the  Point  at  three  hun- 
dred thousand  dollars  ;  produced  the  evidence 
of  a  clerk  in  the  Treasury  Department,  describ- 
ing that  precipitous  rock  at  the  door  of  the 
ocean,  as  a  propert}^  valuable  for  warehouses, 
and  eligible  for  villas  and  suljurban  residences, 
and  statins^  that  six  hundred  acres  of  it  was 
good  for  agricultural  purposes  ! 

At   Nevada,   Broderick   told   the    story   of 
G win's  last  election  to  the  Senate,  s-ivins;  that 

7     o  O 

version  which  made  Latham  party  to  the  larce- 
ny of  the  Tilford  letter.  Latham,  at  Shasta, 
pronounced  the  story  untrue  in  every  respect. 
Gwin,  at  Yreka,  called  it  a  "lie,"  and  vile  and 


BITTER    PERSONALITIES.  557 

slanderous.      In    another  place    lie    ridiculed  chap. 

.  •      XXXVII 

Broderick's  pretensions  to  ability  to  address  in-  ,_^_' 
telligent  audiences ;  his  first  speech  in  the  Sen-  1859. 
ate  was  a  failui'e,  his  second  he  read  from  a 
manuscript.  Broderick,  at  Quincy,  July  21st, 
spoke  of  "  Gwin's  low  scurrility,"  accused  him 
of  being  the  paid  agent  of  the  Pacific  Mail 
Steamship  Company,  and  repeated  a  confident 
belief  that  both  Gwin  and  Weller  were  inter- 
ested in  the  Line  Point  swindle.  Latham,  at 
Nevada,  told  his  version  of  the  Senatorial  bar- 
gain, which  is  incorporated  in  our  account  of 
that  abominable  transaction.  At  Sacramento  he 
said,  in  a  strain  quite  foreign  to  the  campaign, 
that  the  future  historian  would  put  this  down 
among  the  remarkable  features  of  the  year  1859, 
that  while  Barnum  was  lecturing  in  England 
upon  honesty,  and  Lola  Montez  was  lecturing 
in  Scotland  ujDon  feminine  virtue,  David  C. 
Broderick  was  lecturing  in  California  upon 
political  honesty.  Broderick,  at  Red  Blufi', 
spoke  of  Gwin's  "utter  Avorthlessness  of  char- 
acter, his  unreliability  of  word,  his  sneaking 
manner  of  acting."  Gwin,  at  Alleghany  Town, 
said  of  Broderick,  "  He  is  at  my  feet ;  I  have 
my  foot  upon  his  neck.  ...  I  intend  ...  to  lash 
him  with  a  scourge  of  scorpions,  and  shingle 
him  over  with  the  falsehoods  and  libels  he  has 
uttered  against  me  and  others."  Pie  pronounced 
the  charge  of  his  being  the  paid  agent  of  the 


558  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFOUmA. 

CHAP.  Pacific  Mail  Steamship  Company  false,  and  the 

XXXVII  •  . 

J_^_^  author  of  it  a  slanderer  and  calumniator.  "  Such 
1859.  a  man  will  soon  be  banished  from  every  gentle- 
man's house,  if  he  is  now  tolerated  in  any."  In 
a  card,  dated  August  11th,  Gwin  claimed  it 
proven  that  Broderick  intended  to  use  the  posi- 
tion he  held  to  pay  his  electioneering  debts. 

The  llepublicans,  all  this  time,  were  much 
divided  as  to  whether  they  should  fuse  with  the 
anti-Lecompton  party,  with  a  fair  prospect  of 
electing  a  j^ortion  of  their  ticket,  or  maintain 
(heir  isolation,  plead  their  distinctive  doctrines 
from  the  stump,  avoid  all  entangling  alliances, 
and  ]:)oldly  accept  immediate  defeat  as  part  of 
the  drill  necessary  to  "  organize  victory  "  in  the 
future. 

A  distin2:uished  stran2:er  had  arrived — Hor- 
ace  Greeley,  of  the  New  York  Tribune^  covered 
with  boils,  and  very  much  fatigued  with  the 
overland  journey,  yet  lecturing  on  literary  sub- 
jects, addressing  great  crowds  concerning  the 
Pacific  Railroad,  giving  audience  to  admirers, 
and  not  loath  to  tender  advice  to  his  Republican 
friends.  Being  urged  to  do  so,  he  wrote  a  let- 
ter to  the  public  (August  20th),  giving  the 
reasons  why  it  is  better  to  take  half  a  loaf  than 
no  bi'ead,  why  McKibben,  Democrat  as  he  was, 
should  be  re-elected  to  Congress,  and  why  Re- 
publicans and  auti-Lecompton  men  should  unite 
to  defeat  the  Lecompton  ticket. 


HORACE  Greeley's  advice.  559 

The  advice  was  not  well  relished  in  all  Re-  chap. 
publican  quarters.  Frank  M.  Pixley  published  ^_^_, ' 
in  pamphlet  form  a  bold  denunciation  of  the  isso. 
fusing  scheme.  He  believed  that  all  the  rough 
things  Broderick  had  said  of  Gwin,  Weller,  and 
Denver  were  true,  but  he  charged  that  Brod- 
erick  was  no  better.  He  regarded  Broderick 
responsible  for  the  acts  of  the  Executive  of  the 
State  "  while  Bigler  cumbered  the  guberna- 
torial chair,"  for  he  ruled  the  Governor  with  a 
rod  of  iron,  disj)ensed  his  patronage,  and  dis- 
posed of  his  bounty.  He  could  see  nothing  to 
choose  between  Gwin  and  Broderick ;  both  were 
"  equally  bad,  equally  corrupt,  both  unscrupu- 
lous, and  both  surrounded  by  equally  hdd  and 
contem23tible  men."  Broderick  had  voted  with 
Kepublicans  in  the  Senate  simply  because  the 
President  had  tabooed  him,  and  there  was  no 
place  for  him  on  the  Administration  benches. 
In  his  political  career  he  saw  nothing  but  the 
shrewd,  imperious,  self-willed,  unscrupulous  pol- 
itician. While  admitting  his  freedom  from  the 
stain  of  personal  immorality,  if  he  ''  should  give 
a  list  of  all  the  blackguards  that  ever  infested 
San  Francisco,  that  ever  stuffed  a  ballot-box,  or 
raised  a  plug-muss  on  election-day,  he  would 
name  the  political  fiiends  of  the  Hon.  David  C. 
Broderick." 

One  of  the  Republican  candidates  for  Con- 
gress withdrew  on  the  eve  of  election,  and  the 


560  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA . 

CHAP.  Republicans   cast   their  votes  for  Baker  and 
XXXVII.  ]yi;(,j^i|3|5g^^     jt  -^yas  in  vain,  however ;  Latham 

1859.    was  elected  Governor,  and  Bnrch  and  Scott  to 
Congress. 


JTJDaE   TEREY   AJSTD    BRODEEICK.  561 


CHAPTER  XXXVm. 

BRODERICK'S  DEATH.— NOTABLE  DUELS. 

Election  beino:  over,  Jiido;e  Terry  descended  ^^,^;-^.^Vt 

o  ■>  n  J  XXX\  IIL 

from  the  Supreme  bencli,  to  demand  of  Broder-  w.^ — • 
ick  an  apology  for  tlie  uncomplimentary  remark  ]^^^' 
which  Perley  heard  at  the  breakfast-table  of  the 
International  more  than  two  months  previous, 
and  excepted  to.  By  note  he  asked  a  retraction 
of  the  language  used.  Broderick  asked  what 
he  understood  the  language  to  be.  Terry  re- 
plied :  "  You  said, '  1  have  heretofore  considered 
and  spoken  of  him  (Terry)  as  the  only  honest 
man  on  the  Supreme  Court  bench ;  but  I  now 
take  it  all  back,'  "  But  if  that  was  not  the 
exact  language,  it  made  no  difference ;  he  asked 
a  retraction  of  any  words  which  were  calculated 
to  reflect  on  his  character  as  an  officer  or  a  gen- 
tleman. Broderick  responded,  repeating  his 
exact  language,  which  was  about  as  the  other 
had  heard  it,  ^vith  this  addition,  "  During  Judge 
Terry's  incarceration  by  the  Vigilance  Commit- 
tee, I  paid  two  hundred  dollars  a  week  to  sup- 
port a  newspaper  in  his  defence."  "  You  are 
the  best  judge,"  added  the  writer  of  this  note, 

36 


502  THE   HISTORY   OF    CALIFOENIA. 

CHAP,    evidently  surprised  that  at  a  time  when  such 

"V"  Y  V\7"T  T  T  V  M. 

violence  of  speech  vras  tolerated,  language  so 
1851).    very  temperate  and  mild  should  be  selected  to 
shoot  him  for,  "as  to  whether  the  language 
affords  good  grounds  of  oifence." 

As  mortal  combat  was  predetermined,  they 
wasted  little  more  time  on  preliminaries.  Brod- 
erick's  friends  held,  that  if  his  remarks  at  the 
International  table  were  to  be  withdrawn, 
Terry's,  at  Mr.  Benton's  church,  which  j^rovoked 
them,  should  also  be  withdrawn.  But  Terry 
had  nothing  to  retract,  nor  had  Broderick.  So, 
on  the  morning  of  the  11th,  they  met  for  a 
duel  just  over  the  San  Francisco  line,  in  San 
Mateo  County ;  but  Chief  Burke,  armed  with  a 
warrant  from  each  county,  came  suddenly  up, 
arrested  them,  and  put  a  stop  to  proceed- 
ings. The  police  court  dismissed  the  charge, 
because  no  violation  of  the  law  had  been 
committed. 

At  seven  o'clock  on  the  morning  of  Septem- 
ber loth,  the  combatants  met  ao^ain  at  another 
point  in  San  Mateo  County,  some  twelve  miles 
from  the  city,  and  no  police  interfered.  About 
fifty  spectators  were  present.  Terry's  seconds 
were  Thomas  Hayes  and  Calhoun  Benham ; 
Broderick's  were  McKibben  and  D.  D.  Colton. 
Broderick  won  the  choice  of  positions  and  the 
word  of  fire.  Tei'ry  won  the  choice  of  weapons, 
which  "were  duelling  pistols ;  distance,  ten  j)aces. 


beodeeick's  death.  563 

At  tlie  word,  tlie  priucipals  raised  tlieir  pistols,    chap. 

•  •  •  •        XXXVIII 

but  Broderick's  discliarared  itself  before  beino;" 
brought  to  a  level — the  ball  striking  the  ground  1859. 
some  distance  in  front  of  his  opponent.  Terry's 
fire  followed  but  a  second  later — he  exclaiming, 
"The  shot  is  not  mortal;  I  have  struck  two 
inches  to  the  right ;"  then,  as  he  saw  Broderick 
slowly  falling,  he  and  his  friends  i*etired.  The 
ball  had  entered  Broderick's  breast  near  the 
right  nipple,  and  lodged  in  the  left  side.  He 
was  taken  on  a  litter  to  the  road,  and  then  con- 
veyed to  Leonidas  Haskell's  residence  at  Black 
Point.  He  was  in  great  pain,  and  opjDressed 
with  a  heavy  load  on  the  chest,  except  when 
relieved  of  sensibility  by  anaesthetics.  One 
who  was  by  his  bedside  says  that  he  ex- 
claimed, "  They  have  killed  me  because  I  was 
opposed  to  the  extension  of  slavery  and  a  cor- 
rupt Administration."  Occasionally  he  aj^peared 
to  rally,  but  he  soon  fell  into  delirium  again, 
and,  at  twenty  minutes  after  nine  on  the  morn- 
ing of  the  17th  of  September,  he  died. 

On  the  coroner's  inquest,  the  gunsmith  who 
loaded  the  pistol  Broderick  used  said  it  was 
more  delicate  on  the  trigger  than  Terry's; 
though  the  seconds  declared  that  they  were 
ignorant  of  the  fact.  S.  H.  Brooks,  the  new- 
ly elected  State  Comptroller,  loaded  Terry's 
weapon. 

The  remains  of  the  deceased  Senator  were 


564  THE   HISTORY   OF   CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  removed  to  the  Union  Hotel,  there  to  lie  in 
^f^"- state  for  a  time.  On  Sunday,  the  18th,  the 
1859.  funeral  was  celebrated.  Colonel  Baker  deliv- 
ered one  of  his  matchless  orations  over  the 
body,  to  a  great  crowd  assembled  on  the  plaza. 
It  was  a  glowing  tribute  to  the  memory  of  his 
friend,  which  told  the  more  emphatically  be- 
cause it  was  not  unrelieved  eulogy.  He  said, 
that  in  his  judgment,  when  Broderick  sought 
to  anticipate  the  senatorial  election,  he  commit- 
ted an  error  which  he  lived  to  regret.  He 
urged  that  no  man  suppose  his  friend's  death 
"  was  caused  by  any  other  reason  than  that  to 
which  his  own  words  assigned  it.  It  had  been 
long  foreshadowed ;  it  was  predicted  by  his 
friends ;  it  was  threatened  by  his  enemies ;  it 
was  the  consequence  of  intense  political  hatred. 
His  death  was  a  political  necessity,  poorly 
veiled  beneath  the  guise  of  private  quaiTel." 
Concerning  the  code  to  which  this  costly  sac- 
rifice was  brought,  the  orator  said :  "  Fellow- 
citizens,  one  year  ago  I  performed  a  duty  such 
as  I  perform  to-day,  over  the  remains  of  Senator 
Ferguson,  who  died  as  Mr.  Broderick  died, 
tano-led  in  the  meshes  of  the  code  of  honor. 
To-day  there  is  another  and  a  more  eminent 
sacrifice.  To-day  I  renew  my  protest ;  to-day  I 
utter  yours.  The  code  of  honor  is  a  delusion 
and  a  snare  ;  it  palters  with  the  hope  of  a  true 
courage,  and  binds  it  at  the  feet  of  crafty  and 


baker's  eulogy  of  brodeeick.  565 

cruel  sT^ill.  It  surrounds  its  victim  with  the  chap. 
pomp  and  grace  of  the  procession,  but  leaves  ^_^_, 
him  bleeding  on  the  altar.  It  substitutes  cold  1859. 
and  deliberate  preparation  for  courageous  and 
manly  impulse,  and  arms  the  one  to  disarm  the 
other.  It  may  prevent  fraud  between  practised 
duellists,  who  should  be  forever  without  its 
pale,  but  it  makes  the  mere  Hrick  of  the 
weapon'  superior  to  the  noblest  cause  and 
truest  courage.  Its  pretence  of  equality  is  a 
lie:  it  is  equal  in  all  the  form;  it  is  unjust  in 
all  the  substance — the  habitude  of  arms — the 
early  training — the  frontier  life — the  border 
war — the  sectional  custom — the  life  of  leisure ; 
— all  these  are  advantao-es  which  no  nesfotiation 
can  neutralize,  and  which  no  courage  can  over- 
come." 

From  the  Plaza,  the  body  was  borne  to  Lone 
Mountain  Cemetery,  accompanied  by  the  Pio- 
neers, a  benevolent  society,  some  two  thousand 
citizens  on  foot,  and  a  long  procession  of  car- 
riages. At  the  grave,  two  Catholic  clergymen 
officiated.  Father  Gallao-her,  to  the  mourners, 
said  their  friend  died  repenting  his  misguided 
act :  "  He  addressed  me  as  a  father;  I  regarded 
him  as  a  sou  in  Christ."  A  monument  of 
granite  has  since  been  erected  on  the  highest 
ground  in  the  cemetery,  whence  the  ocean  and 
the  city,  and  the  mountains  of  the  coast  range 
across  the  bay,  are  together  visible,  marking  the 


dQ6  the   history    of    CALIFOElSriA. 

CHAP,    spot  where  Broderick's  remains  repose.     At  a 
,  ■  short  distance  from  it  is  the  grave  of  his  friend 

1859.  who  pronounced  the  oration  over  his  bier. 
Colonel  Baker,  soon  after  these  funeral  cere- 
monies, went  to  Oregon,  assisted  in  the  political 
campaign  that  carried  that  State  in  opposition 
to  the  Buchanan  Democracy,  and  was  elected 

1860.  (I860)  United  States  Senator.  On  his  way  to 
Washington,  he  was  received  at  San  Francisco 
with  triumphal  honors  by  the  Republicans, 
who  claimed  him  to  be  theirs  quite  as  much  as 
Oregon's  Senator.  In  the  Senate  chamber,  his 
eloquence  shone  no  less  illustriously  than  in 
the  halls  and  from  "  the  stump "  of  the  Pacific 
coast. 

Baker  was  born  in  England,  but  reared, 
since  six  years  of  age,  in  America.  Deprived 
in  youth  of  all  near  relatives,  except  a  younger 
brother,  whom  he  supported  by  his  work  as  a 
weaver,  in  Philadelphia,  he  went  to  Illinois, 
studied  law,  was  elected  to  Congress,  raised  a 
regiment  of  Illinoisans,  whom  he  led  into  the 
Mexican  war,  where  he  won  distinction,  and  in 
1851  removed  to  San  Francisco. 

The  Slaveholders'  Reliellion  bursting  out 
into  open  war  soon  after  he  had  taken  his  seat 
as  Senator  from  Oregon,  he  raised  a  regiment 
of  volunteers  at  the  East,  during  the  Congres- 
sionAl  recess,  which  gloried  in  the  name  of  the 
"  California  Regiment,"  and  took  it  into  service. 


TEERY    ESCAPES    UNPUNISHED.  507 

At  Ball's    Bluff,   wliile   gallantly  leading   Lis  chap. 
brigade  against  tlie  enemy,  he  fell  pierced  by 
six  bullets.     His  body  was  taken  to  San  Fran-     isoo. 
ci.seo,  where  it  was  received  with  memorable 
ceremonies,  including  a  funeral  oration  by  Ed- 
ward Stanly,  and  another  at  the  grave  by  the  Aug.  18. 
Bev.  T.  Starr  King*,  and  buried  at  Lone  Moun- 
tain. 

A  will  was  found  in  Washington  bearing 
Broderick's  signature.  As  the  proj)erty  it  dis- 
posed of  was  valued  at  some  four  hundred 
thousand  dollars,  the  will  was  vigorously 
contested,  but  it  was  finally  admitted  to  pro- 
bate. 

Terry,  when  he  saw  that  he  had  seriously 
wounded  his  opponent,  hastened  to  Sacramento, 
and  thence  to  his  farm  near  Stockton.  He  had 
left  \^ith  a  friend  his  resignation  of  the  judge- 
ship before  the  duel  came  off,  to  be  sent  in  to 
the  Governor  only  on  condition  of  such  a  result 
as  did  follow.  And  now  he  signified  his  readi- 
ness for  trial.  The  case  was  postponed  fi-om 
time  to  time,  moved  from  court  -to  court,  and  at 
last,  on  a  change  of  venue,  taken  into  Marin 
County,  where  the  Seventh  District  Court  was 
in  session,  temporarily  presided  over  by  Judge 
Hardy,  who  came  all  the  way  from  Mokelunme 
Hill  for  the  purpose.  On  the  day  set  for  trial, 
the  witnesses  from  San  Francisco  were  becalmed 
on  the  bay.     The  court  waited  a  little  while, 


568  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFOEjS^IA. 

CHAP,   tten   the  prosecntins;  attorney  moved  a  nolle 

XXXVIII  ir  o  J 

'prosequi^  and  the  farce  was  ended.  After  the 
I860,  war  of  the  rebellion  broke  out,  Terry  went 
overland  to  Texas,  joined  the  rebels,  and  troub- 
led California  no  more. 

There  had  been  some  notable  duels  in  the 
State  before  this  one  which  proved  fatal  to 
Broderick.  The  bloodless  ones  brought  a  storm 
of  ridicule  upon  all  concerned ;  some  very 
bloody  ones,  where  the  principals  hacked  each 
other  with  swords  till  both  were  shockingly 
mutilated,  and  one  party  or  the  other  butchered, 
were  quite  as  much  calculated  to  disgust  sen- 
sible people  with  "  the  code." 

Edward  Gilbert,  senior  editor  of  the  Alta 
1852.  California  newspaper,  and  one  of  the  first  Con- 
gressmen  chosen  l)y  the  State  after  its  organiza- 
tion, challenged  J.  W.  Denver,  State  Senator 
from  Trinity,  for  reflections  on  him  in  a  j^olit- 
ical  letter.  Denver  accepted,  and  on  the  2d 
of  August,  1852,  at  Oak  Grove,  near  Sacra- 
mento, the  duel  came  off,  the  weapons  being 
rifles,  the  distance  forty  paces.  At  the  first  fire 
both  missed — Denver  purposely,  it  was  said. 
At  the  second  Gilbert  fell,  and  in  a  few  minutes 
died. 

On  the  21st  of  August,  1858,  at  Angel  Isl- 

1858.    and,  George  Pen  Johnston,  and  Mr.  Ferguson,  of 

Sacramento,  a  State  Senator,  fought  a  duel,  the 

cause  being  the  offensive  way  in  which  the  Sen- 


NOTABLE   DTTELS.  569 

ator,  in  a  drinkino:  saloon,  told  a  story  in  wMcli  chap. 

.  XXXVIII 

a  young  lady  of  Johnston's  acquaintance  fig-   , ^__,  ' 

ured.   They  fought  with  pistols,  at  ten  paces  dis-    1858. 
tauce,  which,  in  the  unsatisfactory  j)rogress  of 
the  engagement,  was  shortened  to   six  paces. 
Four  shots   w^ere  exchanged.     On  the  fourth, 
Fero-uson    fell    witli    a    fractured    tliio-h-bone. 

o  o 

Twenty-four  days  afterwards  he  died,  while  the 
surgeons  were  amputating  his  leg.  Johnston 
surrendered  himself  to  the  Marin  County  author- 
ities, w\^s  tried,  and  acquitted,  on  the  ground 
that  Ferguson  died  not  from  the  effects  of  the 
wound,  but  because  he  had  refused  to  allow  an 
earlier  amputation. 

Since  the  Broderick  duel,  there  has  been  but  I86i. 
one  "  affair  of  honor "  that  has  caused  much 
sensation  in  the  State.  It  was  between  Daniel 
Showalter,  of  Mariposa,  aged  thirty-two,  of 
Breckinridge  Democratic  politics,  and  Speak- 
er pro  tempore  of  the  Assembly  of  1861,  and 
Charles  W.  Piercy,  aged  twenty-four,  Douglas 
Democratic  member  from  San  Bernardino.  The 
Union  resolutions  came  to  a  vote  in  Asseml)ly 
under  operation  of  the  previous  question.  Sho- 
walter asked  leave  to  explain  his  vote.  Piercy 
objected.  Show^alter  said  he  had  "  nothing  but 
contempt  for  any  gentleman  who  objects."  The 
quarrel  was  nursed  till  the  Legislature  adjourn- 
ed. Then  Piercy  sent  a  challenge,  which  was 
accepted.     They  met  eight  miles  from  San  Ra- 


5Y0  THE   HISTOEY    OF    CALIFOKXIA. 

rnAP.  foel,  at  four  o'clock  of  the  25tli  of  May  (1861), 
^__^_^  with  rifles,  at  forty  paces,  and  in  j^reseuce,  as 
1861.  was  customary,  of  a  considerable   number  of 
witnesses.     At  the  second  shot  Piercy  fell  dead. 
The  law  is  strinwut  enou2:h  in  letter,  but  it 
has  never  punished  the  duellist,  and  still  it  is 
felt  that  duelling  is  not  likely  again  to  be  re- 
sorted to  by  gentlemen  in  the  State.    A  drunk- 
en vagabond  may,  and  not  nnfrequently  does, 
challenge  some  one  to  mortal  combat,  with  the 
effect  of  brino-inoj  himself  into  the  station-house 

O         CD 

and  into  contempt.  The  change  of  politics,  the 
decay  of  bogus  Chivalry,  and  the  constantly  in- 
creasins:  influence  of  the  New  Ens-land  senti- 
ment,  have  eflected  the  reform. 
I860.  Governor  Weller  surprised  the  people  by  ap- 
pointing Henry  P.  Ilaun,  of  Marysville,  to  oc- 
cupy the  Senatorial  seat  made  vacant  by  Brod- 
erick's  death,  until  the  Legislature  should 
choose  a  permanent  occupant.  Haun  served  for 
one  term,  and  then  died.  On  the  13th  of  Feb- 
ruary he  announced  to  the  Senate  his  prede- 
cessor's death.  He  said  that  he  fell  "  in  an 
unfortunate  conflict,  which  was  engendered  by 
the  use  of  unguarded  expressions  by  the  de- 
ceased, personal  in  their  character  towards  an- 
other distinguished  gentleman,  who  occupied  a 
high  and  honorable  position  in  the  State  of 
California."  He  moved  resolutions  of  respect, 
and  an  adjournment  for  the  day. 


SENATORS    OIT   BRODEEICK.  571 

Mr.  Critteuden  remiuded  Senators  tLat  Brod-   chap. 

erick   always     made    liis    mark   wherever    lie*      ' 

stood.  Mr.  Seward  said  impartiality  would  re-  i860. 
quire  the  historian  to  raise  Houston,  and  Rusk, 
and  Broderick  to  the  rank  among  the  organi- 
zers of  our  States,  which  the  world  has  assigned 
to  Winthrop  and  Villiers,  Kaleigh  and  Penn, 
Baltimore  and  Oglethorpe.  Foster  said  he 
must  vote  against  the  resolutions,  on  the  ground 
that  the  subject  of  their  eulogy  died  by  a  duel 
They  were  adopted. 


572  THE    HISTORY   OF   CALIFORNIA. 


CHAPTER  XXXIX. 

A  POLITICAL  REVOLUTION. 

CHAR      Bo  soon  as  tlie  Legislature  of  1860  assembled, 
^  ^^  ■  the  struggle  for  Broderick's  place  began.   JTho. 
I860.   De^^aociiats-^voro  in  -jaQi7er_as  usual^    Ninety- 
seven  of  them  went  into  caucus  together^  and 


on  the^  first  Icndlot  Ex-(TOverngiu-3^^4iL]er  had 
thirty-eight  votes  ;^_^x-Congressman  Denver, 
thirty-one ;  Judge  Baldwin,  eleven ;  Collector 
Washington,  nine;  and  General  McDougall, 
eight.  They  tried  it  again  on  an  early  ensuing 
evening;  Baldwin  was  withdrawn,  Denver 
stepped  aside,  and  the  first  ballot  showed  La- 
tham, fifty-one ;  Weller,  forty-three ;  Washing- 
ton, two.  The  result  startled  the  j^eople,  who 
had  just  elected  Latliam  Governor,  but  caucus 
asked  no  permission  from  the  people.  The  two 
houses  met  in  Joint  Convention  on  the  11th  of 
January.  A  Sacramento  member  nominated 
Latham,  a  San  Franciscan  nominated  Oscar  L. 
Shatter,  and  John  Conness  for  the  Anti-Lecomp- 
tonites  nominated  Edmund  Randolph.  The 
first  ballot  gave  Latham  (who  the  day  before 


LATHAM    ELECTED    UNITED   STATES    SENATOR.      573 

was  inaugurated  Governor)  ninety-seven,  Ran-  chap. 
clolpli  fourteen,  Shafter  tliree. 

Latham,  having  achieved  the  object  of  his  i860. 
ambition,  resigned  the  reins  of  State  Govern- 
ment to  John  G.  Downey,  Lieutenant-Governor, 
a  man  without  political  history  or  experience, 
but  not  destined  to  be  without  a  popularity, 
especially  in  San  Francisco,  quite  new  to  Chief 
Executives  in  California.  The  Lesrislature 
shaped  its  labors  mainly  witli  the  view  of  se- 
curing all  the  patronage  possible  for  the  Demo- 
cratic party,  that  it  might  go  with  reasonable 
expectations  into  the  Presidential  election  of 
the  coming  fall.  It  passed  bills  for  the  inspec- 
tion of  beef  and  pork,  and  multiplied  licenses, 
not  so  much  for  revenue  purposes,  or  because 
those  staples  needed  inspection,  as  because  fa- 
vorites and  men  skilled  in  the  tactics  of  primary 
conventions  wanted  paying  places.  It  crowned 
its  unwelcome  labors  with  an  act  authorizing 
substantially  the  joint  wharf  companies  of  San 
Francisco  to  build  a  sea-wall,  or  bulkhead,  along 
the  city  front,  and  to  take  toll  of  all  that  passed 
it  into  the  city  for  fifty  years  to  come ;  mean- 
while mockino"  the  State  with  the  tender  of  the 
reserved  right  to  buy  the  work  on  completion 
at  cost  and  ten  per  cent,  yearly  interest.  It 
was  a  barefaced  imposition  of  a  heavy  tax  on 
commerce  for  the  benefit  of  speculators,  whicli 


574  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFORlSriA. 

CHAP.  San  Francisco  resented  with  profound  indio^na- 
XXXIX., .  ° 
.  tion. 

1800.  Now  it  had  been  claimed  that  Latham  was 
pledged  against  the  scheme,  and  that,  knowing 
he  could  not  be  moved  to  fovor  it,  he  was  sent 
to  the  Senate  by  the  Bulkheaders'  influence,  to 
get  him  out  of  the  way.  If  so,  they  calculated 
without  their  true  host.  Governor  Downey 
lacked  experience,  but  not  resolution,  and  when 
the  enrolled  bill  went  to  him  for  the  executive 
sanction  he  vetoed  it. 

The  Bulkheaders  were  boiling  with  wrath  ; 
San  Francisco  went  into  ecstasies.  The  citi- 
zens demanded  a  visit  from  the  little  Governor 
of  L'ish  birth  aud  iron  backbone,  and,  when  he 
reluctantly  consented,  they  met  him  at  the 
Sacramento  boat,  with  a  torchlight  procession 
that  shamed  every  precedent  in  that  line.  They 
escorted  him  to  his  temporary  residence  with 
music,  and  banners,  and  cheers,  through  streets 
illuminated  with  bonfires,  costly  pyrotechnics, 
and  transparencies,  exhibiting  mottoes  of  wel- 
come, and  with  rockets  and  Roman  candles, 
often  defined  triumphal  arches,  over  the  route. 

This  veto  killed  the  bulkhead,  which,  in  one 
form  or  another,  had  been  the  great  topic  of  strife 
ever  since  Bigler  advised  the  water-front  exten- 
sion. After  that  it  was  heard  of  no  more  as 
a  living  lobby  scheme.  The  Union  Legisla- 
ture of  1863  passed  an  act  creating  a  commis- 


DOWNET   VETOES   THE   BULKHEAD    BILL.  575 

sion  composed  of  three  citizens,  to  be  elected  in  chap. 
a  way  satisfactory  to  the  whole  people,  to 
manage  the  wharves  and  apply  their  reve-  i860. 
nues,  hitherto  stopping  mostly  in  private  hands, 
to  needful- repairs  and  the  construction  of  such 
a  sea-wall  as  the  wants  of  commerce  and  the 
protection  of  the  harbor  demand.  The  work, 
though  just  beginning,  is  in  satisfactory  shape, 
and  j)romises  the  happiest  results. 

Downey  won  the  gratitude  of  the  friends  of 
a  free  press,  too,  by  pocketing  a  bill  concerning 
libel,  intended  to  punish  for  their  outspoken, 
honest  editorials,  certain  papers  at  the  Bay  that 
lashed  the  Treasury  thieves  into  continuous 
fury.  The  gratitude  of  the  Bay  City  people 
towards  the  Los  Angeles  apothecary,  who2:)layed 
the  part  of  Governor  so  much  better  than  any 
of  his  predecessors  had  done,  was  unbounded. 
There  was  nothing  they  would  not  have  given 
him,  but  that  his  Southern  proclivities  drew 
him,  towards  the  close  of  his  term,  upon  a  rock 
which,  in  the  stormy  times,  no  craft  could  graze 
without  serious  dama2:e. 

That  year,  for  the  third  time,  the  people,  by 
direct  vote,  repudiated  the  proposition  for  a 
convention  to  revise  the  Constitution.  Desirous 
as  they  were  to  secure  and  enjoy  certain  changes 
in  the  organic  law,  especially  to  place  the  Su- 
preme Court  on  a  more  satisfactory  footing,  and 
reduce  the  ordinary  expenses  of  government, 


i>^6  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFOEmA. 

CHAP,  they  refused  the  risks  incident  to  a  general 
,__^revisal.  As  early  as  1852  the  Chivalry  had 
1800.  unsuccessfully  attempted  a  convention,  witli  the 
secret  purpose  of  dividing  the  State  and  erect- 
ing the  southern  half  into  a  Slave  Temtoiy. 
From  that  time  the  friends  of  Union  and  of 
freedom  were  very  chary  of  creating  any  oppor- 
tunities that  secessionists  or  slavery  exteusion- 
ists  might  possibly  use  mischievously. 

The  result  of  the  fall  election  (1860)  proved 
that  the  anti-slavery  doctrines,  urged  with  so 
much  persistency  in  regions  that  seemed  to  give 
no  token  of  respect  for  them,  by  Republican 
stump  speakers  and  a  portion  of  the  press,  not 
always  without  peril  of  insult,  and  for  the  ora- 
tors showers  of  stale  eggs,  had  taken  unex- 
pected hold  of  the  interior ;  that  the  Northern 
sentiment  was  strengthening  in  the  larger  cities; 
that  the  quarrels  of  the  Democracy  and  the  cor- 
ruption of  a  party  that  ran  the  State  for  its 
spoils,  had  worked  out  their  legitimate  result 
in  the  distrust  of  its  more  intelligjeut  adherents. 
The  popula?--vettr-gn:veHE3in«olil^_for_President, 
a  plurality  of  seven  hundred  over  Douglas,  and 
three  thousand  more  foi^  Douglas  than  for 
Breckijiridge— -the^Jotal  vote_cast_Jbeiug  one 
hundred  and  nineteen  thousand  eight  hundred 
and  twelve.  Mr.  Lincoln  received  the  four 
votes  of  the  State  in  the  Electoral  College. 
The   influence   of    Brodeiick   dead   was    even 


THE    CHIVALRY    CRUSHED.  577 

t!;reater  than  lie  had  exerted  living.     To  the  chap. 

party  of  which  he  had  been  the  leader  belonged  , ^ 

half  the  credit  of  the  change.     The   Chivalry  i8(5o. 
were  utterly  crushed. 

The  Legislature  then  elected,  and  which  met 
in  January,  l&61,.Jiad  few  Republicans-4e— it,  i^ei. 
but  tire— eeloy-Q£--thfi_jiew  Democracy  differed 

materiall}^  iVnm    -Mir^f  nf  \\\i^    n1r1         "RfVJlMTnnsps 

adopted  a  concurrentresolution  pronouncing 
untrue  and  expungingthe  resolutions  of  cen- 
sure _gn__Broderick,  passed  two  years  before. 
They  rather  distinguished  themselves  "ByTheir 
more  generous  than  jusT  gifts  and  franchises  to 
individuals  and  companies,  of  which  the  privi- 
lege of  laying  horse  railroads  in  the  streets  of 
San  Francisco  was  chief.  The  first  three  of 
these  popular  institutions  were  granted  that 
year,  and,  whether  the  scandal  about  the  cor- 
rupt appliances  used  to  obtain  their  charters 
was  true  or  not,  it  is  certain  that  on  the  rail- 
road question,  as  on  a  pivot,  turned  almost  all 
the  other  local  legislation. 

That  Legislature  accomplished  ^so  the  al- 
ways difficult  job  of  electing  a  United  States 
Senator,  taking  nearly  three  months  for  it. 
Gwin's  seat  was  to  become  vacant  on  the  3d 
of  March.  The  split  in  the  Democracy  was  too 
wide  to  be  bridged  by  any  caucus,  and  it  was 
not  attempted  The  Assembly,  willing  to  try 
the  paces  of  candidates,  invited  all  aspirants  to 

37 


57&  THE   HISliOKY   OF   CALIFOENIA. 

CHAP,  address  it  publicly.     General  McDouscall  alone 

XXXIX  ->  •  • 

,_^^  ■  ventured  to  the  platform,  for  it  was  a  time,  just 
1861.  on  the  eve  of  war,  wlien  trimming  politicians 
slirank  from  committing  themselves.  Edmund 
Randolph  was  sick  in  bed,  and  lost  that  oppor- 
tunity to  pledge  himself  to  loyalty.  But 
McDoiigall  made  an  excellent  Union  speech. 

About  the  middle  of  February  the  Douglas 
men  bes-an  to  assemble  in  caucus.  One  even- 
ing,  twenty-six  members  being  present,  McDou- 
gall  received  thiiteen  votes,  Randolph  six  (not- 
withstandino;  that  his  name  was  withdrawn 
during  the  progress  of  the  voting),  Edgerton 
three,  Griffith  two.  So  McDougall  was  the 
nominee  of  the  Douglas  caucus. 

The  other  kind  of  Democrats  tried  in  vain  to 
obtain  a  caucus.  The  Republicans  were  more 
harmonious,  and  on  the  twelfth  ballot  nomina- 
ted Timothy  G.  Phelps. 

The  Legislature  went  into  joint  convention 
on  the  9th  of  March,  with  the  following  result : 
Weller  t^venty-seven,  Phelps  twenty-three,  Mc- 
Dougall twenty-seven,  Nugent  nine,  Denver 
sixteen,  Whitesides  sixteen,  Hoge  five,  and 
others  three.  On  the  19th,  the  Breckinridge 
and  anti-McDouo:all  Democrats  met  to  the  num- 
ber  of  forty-six  in  caucus,  and  nominated  John 
Nugent,  formerly  proprietor  and  editor  of  the 
San  Francisco  Herald.  In  joint  convention 
next  day,  on  the  twenty-second  and  last  ballot, 


UNION    MAY    MTiETING.  579 

IMcDongall  had   fifty-six,  Nugent   forty-seven,  chap. 
Weller  six,  Phelps  one,  Creanor  one.     To  obtain  ,_^_' 
this  result,  which  gave  just  the  necessary  num-    I86I. 
ber  to  elect  McDougall,  Phelps  changed  his 
vote  when  he  s-aw  that  the  Kepublicans,  by 
uniting  with  the  Douglas  men,  could  elect  a 
man  firmly  pledged  to  the  Union,  and  save  the 
State  from  being   represented  in   the   United 
States  Senate  by  John  Nugent. 

The  news  that  Secessionists  had  fired  on  Fort 
Sumter  reached  the  Pacific  coast  late  in  A2)ril, 
and  it  fired  the  Union-loving  heart  of  Califor- 
nia. A  great  meeting  was  held  in  San  Francis- 
co on  the  11th  of  May,  business  being  suspend- 
ed, and  the  day  devoted  to  it.  Several  promi- 
nent citizens,  of  dubious  tendencies  before,  took 
then  their  stand  openly  for  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment and  against  the  seceders.  In  September, 
Captains  Halleck,  Naglee,  and  others  of  mili- 
tary education  went  East,  tendering  their  ser- 
vices to  the  Administration.  The  election  that 
fall  was  a  positive  triumph  for  the  Pj^pnblicana^ 
an  overwhelming  one  for  the  two  Union  par- 
ties. Three  candidates  for  Governor  were  in 
the  field :  Leland  Stanford,  Repul>lican ;  John 
Conness,  "Hnnglns  TTenTocr^lrpJ.  Tt.  Mrneimell^ 
Breckinridge  Democrat.  Their  votes  were,  for 
Stanford,  fifty-six  thousand  and  thii^ty-six ;  for 
Conness,   thirty   thousand   nine  hundred   and 


580  THE   HISTORY    OF   CALIFOENIA. 

CHAP,  forty-four ;  for  McConnell,  tliirty-two  thousand 
seven  hundred  and  fifty-one. 

1802.  Still,  theLegislature  that  met_jamiarv^J8()2j 
was  not  Republican ;  the  party  never  had  a 
nominal  control  in  the  Legislature,  though l;hat 
year  the.^]ederal^iid_Stat£L-Qffi^esj\^^  by 

Republicans.  The  majority  of  the  members 
were  of  Democratic  antecedents,  elected  by  a 
union  of  the  Republican_and_  Free-Soil  Demo- 
cratTc^votesi!  For^the  local  reputation  of  the 
party  that  elected  Mr.  Lincoln  it  was  just  as 
well  so.  A  flood  that  submerged  Sacramento, 
and  made  its  streets  only  passable  for  boats, 
compelled  an  early  adjournment  of  the  Legisla- 
ture to  San  Francisco,  where  the  session  was 
completed.  It  did  a  wholesale  business  in  the 
way  of  franchises  for  ferries,  bridges,  and  toll- 
roads.  It  abounded  in  local  and  special  legis- 
lation. But  it  submitted  some  wholesome 
amendments  of  the  Constitution,  which  the 
people  adopted  cheerfully,  and  on  the  great 
national  question  it  was  sound.  It  impeached 
Judge  Hardy  (of  the  Terr}^  farce),  and  the 
Senate,  sitting  as  a  court,  found  him  guilty  of 
using  treasonable  language,  and  deposed  him 
from  the  bench  of  the  Sixteenth  District. 
TheJ[£gislaitH'e-oftSl33  was  almost  entirely 

1863.  Union.  The  distinctioii^Jj^it^sieeB-^R^epTrblican 
and  DoTiglas  DemoiraL  had  vanished.  It  is 
strange  that,  without-opposition  enough  to  act 


LEGISLATIVE    CONDUCT.  581 

as  a  "brake  upon  it,  the  party  did  nothing  to  chap. 
damage  the  commonwealth ;  for  it  cannot  be  _^_ ' 
denied  that  party  needs  party  to  check  it,  and  18G3^ 
that  nothing  is  so  wholesome  for  a  majority  as  a 
compact,  stubborn  minority  to  watch  it.    Phelps 
and  Sargent,  who  were  both  in  the  House  of 
Kepresentatives,   Trenor   W.  Park,  and   John 
Conness,  were   candidates    before    caucus    for 
United    States   Senator.      After   a    lons^    and 
heated  struggle,  Conness  won  the  caucus  nomi- 
nation, and  the  joint  convention  ratified  it. 

The  Legislature  of  1864  was,  like  its  prede-  1864. 
cessor,  loyal  in  all  its  utterances,  and  reflecting 
by  its  acts  no  discredit  upon  the  pai-ty  to  which 
an  overwhelming  majority  of  its  members  be- 
longed. But  the  importance  of  the  subject  jus- 
tifies a  more  extended  reference  to  the  temper 
with  which  California  has  regarded  her  relations 
to  the  Federal  Government. 


582  THE    HISTORY    OF    CALIFOKNIA. 


CHAPTER   XL. 

RELATIONS  TO   THE  FEDERAL   GOVERNMENT. 

When  the  Soutliern  States  began  to  secede, 
California  was  ruled  by  a  Democratic  Governor, 
1861.  a  Democratic  Legislature  occupied  its  capital, 
and  four  Democrats  were  its  representatives  in 
Congress.  Her  forts  were  garrisoned  by  men 
whose  lo3"alty  in  so  trying  an  hour  could  only 
be  surmised.  It  was  not  without  fears  for  the 
result  that  the  position  of  the  State  was  ob- 
served from  WashiuG-ton. 

The  Republicans  and  Douglas  Democrats  in 
the  Leo-islature  united  to  elect  General  James 
A.  McDougall  to  the  United  States  Senate,  who, 
though'  a  Democrat,  placed  himself  squarely  on 
a  coercion  and  war  platform.  They  also  se- 
cured the  passage  of  a  resolution  declaring  that 
the  people  would  not  fail  in  fidelity  and  fealty 
to  the  Constitution  and  the  Union,  and  the 
State  would  at  all  times  respond  to  any  requi- 
sition that  might  be  made  upon  it  to  defend 
the  republic  against  foreign  and  domestic 
foes. 

Brigadier-General  Albert  Sydney  Johnston, 


PERILOUS  posmoiT.  583 

a  native  of  Kentucky,  commanded  the  Pacific  chap. 
Department.     Wliile  it  was  not  supposed  that  _^_ 
a  soldier  of  his  honorable  antecedents  could    isoi. 
betray  a  trust  as  Twiggs  had  done  in  Texas,  his 
sympathies  were  known  to  be  with  the  South, 
and  if  Kentucky  should  secede  it  was  feared 
that  he  might  "  go  Avith  his  State,"  as  was  the 
political  fashion  of  the  time. 

It  is  said  that  Edmund  Randolph  (for  till 
Virginia  seceded  he  was  for  the  Union)  com- 
municated information,  which,  through  Colonel 
Baker,  was  transmitted  to  President  Lincoln,  to 
the  effect  that  a  scheme  was  meditated  for  turn- 
ing California  over  to  the  Confederacy.  It  was 
known,  too,  at  Washington,  that  Jefferson  Da- 
vis had  offered  Johnston  the  major-geueralshi}) 
of  the  rebel  armies,  a  foct  which  Johnston  did 
not  communicate  to  his  superiors  in  authority. 
General  Edwin  V.  Sumner  received  orders  to 
proceed  to  the  Pacific  const  at  once.  He  board- 
ed the  Aspinwall  steamer  after  she  left  her 
wharf  at  New  York,  and  came  unannounced. 
Arriving  at  San  Francisco,  he  immediately 
called  upon  General  Johnston,  and  conveyed  to 
him  the  proofs  that  he  was  relieved.  Johnston 
was  not  surprised.  A  friend  in  Washington, 
who  was  afterwards  dismissed  thejservice,  had 
surreptitiously  notified  him  by  pony  express 
that  Sumner  was  coming,  and,  availing  himself 
of  that  information,  Johnston  had  already  dis- 


584  THE    HISTORY    OF    CALIFOENIA. 

CHAP,  patched  his  resignation  to  the  Department. 
,_,^_  He  turned  over  the  forts,  arsenals,  &c.,  to 
1861.  his  successor,  and  soon  proceeded  South  by  the 
overland  route  through  Texas.  He  was  intrust- 
ed with  an  important  command  in  the  Confed- 
erate service,  and  was  killed  in  battle  on  the 
field  of  Shiloh.  Sumner  arrived  here  in  April 
(1861),  but  not  a  day  too  early. 

The  great  May  meeting  in  San  Francisco 
cheered  the  friends  of  the  Administration  as  to 
the  stand  of  that  city,  but  whether  the  State 
would  ])ack  up  the  city  was  still  somewhat  in 
doubt.  The  leading  independent  papers  which, 
while  there  was  any  hope  of  a  compromise, 
pleaded  for  peace,  and  deprecated  coercion, 
with  the  news  of  the  attack  on  Fort  Sumter 
earnestly  pronounced  for  the  war,  and  brought 
their  support  to  the  Administration,  in  its 
most  vigorous  efforts  to  crush  out  the  rebel- 
lion. The  pulpit  was  eloquent  for  Union,  and 
for  the  war  necessary  to  preserve  it.  In  San 
Francisco  the  national  flasf  was  hoisted  over 
most  of  the  churches,  not  including  those  of  the 
Episcopalians  and  Catholics,  who,  though  pro- 
fessing equal  respect  for  the  flag  and  all  it  sym- 
bolizes, thought  that  even  it  should  not  be 
placed  on  a  consecrated  building. 

But  to  the  rule  of  loyal  utterance  from  the 
pulpit  there  was  one  marked  exception.  The 
Rev.  Dr.  Scott,  of  Calvary,  preached  peace  with 


THE    EEV.    J.    STAER    KING.  585 

offensive  zeal.  In  his  public  prayers  lie  would  chap. 
not  omit  the  petition  for  blessings  on  "all 
presidents  and  vice-presidents,"  which  the  public  186I. 
interpreted  into  a  prayer  for  Jefferson  Davis  as 
fervent  as  for  Lincoln.  One  morning,  in  Sep-  Sept. 
tember  (1861),  an  effigy  of  the  doctor  was 
found  hanging  in  front  of  his  church.  He 
trimmed  his  words,  and  read  carefully  wi'itten 
prayers,  but  he  could  not  conceal  his  sympathy 
with  the  seceders.  Great  crowds  gathered 
about  his  church  on  Sunday,  and  there  was 
much  danger  of  some  disgraceful  outbreak. 
But  the  bold  stand  of  the  independent  press 
against  mob  law,  and  the  prudent  management 
of  the  police,  averted  the  dreaded  riot.  Hap- 
pily, Dr.  Scott  resigned  and  left  the  country. 
His  warmest  friends  (and  his  personal  traits 
and  popular  preaching  made  him  many  friends) 
were  glad  to  see  him  safely  out  of  the  way  of 
the  mischief  that  his  inability  to  keep  silence 
on  stirring  pertinent  themes  was  always  brew- 
ing. 

Among  the  clergy  who  did  great  service  to 
the  Union  was  the  Rev.  T.  Starr  King;,  who 
came  from  Boston  to  San  Francisco  to  take 
pastoral  charge  of  the  First  Unitarian  Church, 
Besides  his  reputation  as  a  pulpit  orator,  he 
brought  with  him  an  enviable  name  as  a  lec- 
turer. He  delivered  a  course  of  lectures,  soon 
after   his    arrival   in    1860,    on   miscellaneous 


586  THE   HISTOEY    OF   CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  literary  subjects,  whicli  were  very  mucli 
■  relished  by  critical  audiences.  Being  pretty 
1862.  fully  reported  by  the  press,  every  corner  of  the 
State  was  soon  demanding  him  to  repeat  the 
course,  and  invitations  were  showered  in  upon 
him  to  speak  on  extraordinary  occasions  and 
special  topics.  Though  his  first  lectures  were 
purely  literary,  he  soon  began  to  mix  in  the 
wholesome  doctrines  of  free  speech,  human 
rights,  abhorrence  of  slavery,  and  the  impeia- 
tive  necessity  of  Union.  There  was  a  charm  in 
his  delivery  that  few  could  resist.  He  was  re- 
ceived with  applause  where  Republican  orators, 
saying  things  no  more  radical,  could  not  be 
heard  without  hisses.  Delicately  feeling  his 
way,  and  never  arousing  the  j)rejudices  of  his 
hearers,  he  adroitly  educated  his  audiences  to  a 
lofty  style  of  patriotism.  The  efi'ect  was  obvious 
in  San  Francisco,  where  audiences  were  accus- 
tomed to  every  style  of  address;  it  was  far 
more  noticeable  in  the  interior. 

Afterwards,  as  politics  became  simjily  a  ques- 
tion of  Union  or  Dissolution,  he  construed 
sermons,  lectures,  addresses,  orations,  all  to  the 
one  end  of  deepening  the  Union  sentiment,  and 
even  occasionally  took  the  stump  for  candidates 
who  promised  best  to  keep  tlie  State  headed 
right  for  Union. 

When,  in  1863,  a  United  States  Senator  was 
to  be  elected,  thei'e  was  much  desire  to  secure 


PAETY   PROCEDURES.  587 

Ills  services  for  the  honorable  position,  but  he  chap. 
modestly  dissuaded  his  friends,  and  discouraged  _^_, 
all  thought  of  it.  He  had  a  higher  ambition.  18(53. 
The  senatorship  was  for  six  years ;  of  the  sacred 
office  he  already  held,  his  tenure  was  for  life. 
Though  holding  a  faith  rejected  by  most  of  the 
clergy  mthwhom  he  cordially  co-operated  for  his 
country,  they  allowed  no  question  of  sectarianism 
to  divide  their  patriotic  labors.  His  valuable  life 
was  cut  short  by  dipktlieria.,  in  the  Spring  of 
1864.  The  people  of  the  State  mourned  his 
departure  as  if  news  of  the  loss  of  a  battle  had 
been  telegraphed  to  them.  He  was  buried  in 
the  enclosure  of  the  beautiful  church  which  his 
enterprise  had  just  pushed  to  completion,  and 
which  constitutes  his  appropriate  monument. 

The  political  parties  had  soon  found  their 
places  and  taken  them.  The  Republicans  July, 
dropped  all  but  their  name,  and  came  out  un- 
conditionall}"  for  the  Union.  The  Central  Com- 
mittee of  the  Breckinridge  Democrats  coquetted 
with  the  Committee  of  the  Douo-las  Democrats 
for  a  fusion,  but  the  latter  declined  all  offers, 
and  the  factions  parted  company.  The  conven- 
tion of  the  Douiilas  Democrats  met  on  the  4th 
of  July  (1861),  under  the  name  of  the  Union 
Democratic  party — Douglas  was  dead — and 
nominated  John  Conness  for  Governor ;  Downey 
having  ruined  his  chances  for  a  nomination,  by 
a  letter  to  the  great  IMay  meeting  at  San  Fran- 


588  THE    HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  cisco,  ill  Avliich   he  said :    "  I  did  not  believe, 

nor  do  I  now,  that  an  aggressive  war  should  be 

18G1.    waged  upon  any  section  of  the  Confederacy,  nor 

July-    Jq  I  believe  that  this  Union  can  be  preserved 

by  a  coercive  policy." 

The  Breckinridge  Democracy  met  July  23d. 
Their  convention  was  less  remarkable  for  its 
milk-and-water  resolutions,  and  its  list  of  un- 
successful candidates  nominated  for  office,  than 
for  a  crazy  speech,  made  by  the  eccentric  Ed- 
mund Randolph.  That  able  lawyer,  who  had 
a  passion  for  siding  with  hopeless  minorities, 
was  almost  dying  with  the  disease  that  shortly 
afterwards  proved  fatal  to  him.  Appearing  in 
this  convention,  where  his  presence  was  a  sur- 
prise, and  being  tempted  into  a  speech,  he 
said,  among  other  things :  "  Gentlemen,  my 
thouglits  and  my  heart  are  not  here  to-night  in 
this  house.  Far  to  the  East,  in  the  homes  from 
which  we  came,  tyranny  and  usurpation,  with 
arms  in  its  hands,  is  this  night,  perhaps, 
slaughtering  our  fathers,  our  brothers,  and  our 
sisters,  and  outraging  our  homes  in  every  con- 
ceivable way  shocking  to  the  heart  of  humanity 
and  freedom.  To  me,  it  seems  a  waste  of  time 
to  talk.  For  God's  sake,  gentlemen,  tell  me  of 
battles  fought  and  won.  Tell  me  of  usurpers 
overthrown ;  that  Missouri  is  again  a  free  State, 
no  louQ-er  crushed  under  the  armed  heel  of  a 
reckless  and  odious  despot.     Tell  me  that  the 


Randolph's  crazy  harangue.  589 

State  of  Maryland  lives  again ;  and  oil !  gentle- 
men, let  us  read,  let  us  liear  at  the  first  moment 
that  not  one  hostile  foot  now  treads  the  soil  of  I86I. 
Virginia.  [Applause  and  cheers.]  If  this  be 
rebellion,  then  I  am  a  rebel.  Do  you  want  a 
traitor,  then  I  am  a  traitor.  For  God's  sake 
speed  the  ball ;  may  the  lead  go  quick  to  his 
heart,  and  may  our  country  be  fi'ee  from  this 
despot  usurper  that  now  claims  the  name  of 
President  of  the  United  States.     [Cheers.]" 

The  result  of  the  election  settled  the  status  of 
California  abroad.  The  Kepublicans  and  Union 
Democrats  together  polled  eighty-six  thousand 
nine  hundred  and  eighty  votes;  the  Breckinridge 
Democrats,  thirty-two  thousand  seven  hundred 
and  fifty-one.  In  his  retiring  message.  Govern- 
or Downey  claimed  that  he  had  faithfully  rep- 
resented the  people  on  the  Union  and  War 
questions.  "Although,"  said  he,  "with  one 
single  exception,  the  only  Executive  of  all  the 
Free  States  entertaining  political  proclivities  at 
variance  with  the  party  administering  the  Na- 
tional Government,  not  one  of  them  can  have 
displayed  a  greater  promptitude  in  obeying 
every  constitutional  requisition  of  the  Presi- 
dent." However,  when,  a  few  days  later,  Leland 
Stanford  was  inaugurated,  the  people  breathed 
more  freely,  for  now  their  Executive  was  un- 
equivocally, and  without  any  reservations,  for 
tbe  Union. 


590  THE   HISTORY    OF  CALIFOEKIA. 

cnAP.       In  Congress,  California  was  unfortunately  rep- 
,_^_^_  resented     at    first.      The  course   that  Senator 
1861-  Gwin    has   since  taken  was  expected  of  liim. 
^  ^*'    Still,  in  Lis  last  session,  he  denied  that  he  had 
said  in  case  of  a  disruption  California  would  go 
with  the  South,  and  protested  that  she  ^vas  for 
the  Union.     His  exit  from  the  Senate  was  oc- 
casion of  great  joy  to  the  State  that  so  long 
honored  him. 

Senator  Latham,  before  the  election  of  Lin- 
coln, had  predicted  that  California,  if  the  divi- 
sion came,  would  either  go  with  the  South  or  set 
up  for  herself.  At  the  session  of  18G0-61,  he 
took  back  the  prediction,  saying  he  was  satis- 
fied he  had  mistaken  the  sentiments  of  the  peo- 
ple. Returning  to  California  in  the  spring  of 
1861,  he  made  Union  speeches  on  the  stump. 
In  the  Senate,  he  voted  generally  to  sustain  the 
war  policy  of  the  Administration  ;  but,  return- 
ing in  the  summer  of  1862  to  California,  he 
went  about  denouncing  the  Administration, 
parading  its  alleged  corruption,  charging  that 
it  had  j^erverted  the  war  into  a  war  of  aboli- 
tion.    So  he  was  quietly  shelved. 

Senator  McDougall,  who  succeeded  Gwin, 
grievously  disappointed  those  to  whom  he 
owed  his  election.  He  voted  most  war  meas- 
ures, but  he  seemed  at  heart  with  the  opposi- 
tion. The  Legislature  of  1864,  by  concurrent 
resolution,  charged  him  Avith  violating  the  let- 


CALIFOENLA    SENATOES    ON    Ul^IOK^.  591 

ter  and  spirit  of  bis  pledges,  and  repudiated  chap. 
liiui  as  a  wilful  misrepreseutative  of  the  wishes, 
the  opinions,  and  habits  of  the  people. 

Senator  Conness,  who  succeeded  Latham  on 
the  great  questions  involving  the  life  of  the 
nation,  lias,  so  far,  truly  represented  liis  constit- 
uents. 

In  the  early  summer  of  1862,  impressed  with 
the  necessity  of  uniting  more  firmly  all  friends 
of  the  Union  to  prevent  accidents  that  Avould 
damage  the  reputation  of  the  State,  or  cause  in 
the  General  Government  any  possible  suspicion 
of  the  loyalty  of  California,  the  Republicans 
and  Union  Democrats  united  in  one  strong 
Union  party.  The  Republicans  laid  down  their 
old  organization  at  once  ;  the  Union  Democratic 
leaders,  lagging  behind  the  rank  and  file,  still 
adhered  to  theirs.  The  only  State  officer  to  be 
elected  that  year  ^vas  the  Superintendent  of 
Common  Schools.  The  Union  candidate  re- 
ceived some  thirteen  thousand  majority  over 
both  the  other  candidates,  though  one  of  them 
was  the  nominee  of  the  still  surviving  Union 
Democratic  organization.  In  the  fall  of  1863  a 
better  opportunity  was  afforded  for  a  test  of 
the  strength  of  parties.  The  Union  party  nomi- 
nated F.  F.  Low  for  Governor ;  the  Democrats 
chose  their  strongest  man,  ex-Governor  Downey, 
who  still  professed  Unionism;  and  there  was 
no  third  candi-date.      Low  had  nineteen  thou- 


592  THE    HISTORY    OF   CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  sand  six  liundred  and  sixty -one  majority,  and  was 
■     elected.      Three   members    of    Congress   were 
1801-   elected — all  thoroughly  for  the  Union,  and  dis- 
^^^^'    posed  to  stand  by  the  Administration  in  its 
most  earnest  measures  for  the  vigorous  prose- 
cution of  the  war.     The  Legislatures  for  the 
years  1862,  1863,    and    1864   vied   with  each 
other  in  the  expression  of  the  immovable  deter- 
mination of  the  people  to  sustain  the  Union  at 
every  hazai'd.     Nothing  more  could  be  asked  in 
the  way  of  pledges. 

And  now,  as  in  every  department  the  State 
was  right  loyally  represented,  it  was  fortunate 
that  the  amendments  to  the  Constitution  had 
gone  into  effect,  under  which  the  State  officers 
were  to  serve  four  years,  the  Legislature  to 
meet  but  once  in  two  years,  and  the  Supreme 
Court  to  be  reorganized  hj  the  election  of  five 
judges,  and  the  one  of  them  who  drew  the 
longest  term  to  hold  office  for  ten  years.  The 
Judicial  election  (1863)  resulted  in  the  election 
of  five  first-class  lawyers  to  the  bench — S.  W. 
Sanderson,  O.  L.  Shafter,  John  Curry,  Lorenzo 
Sawyer,  and  A.  L.  Rhodes ;  men  whose  ability, 
purity,  and  patriotism  were  alike  unquestioned. 
In  w^hatever  other  way  California  could  prove 
her  loyalty,  she  did  it  heartily.  In  accordance 
with  the  requisition  of  the  General  Govern- 
ment, two  regiments  of  cavalry  and  five  of 
infantry  were  organized  in  the  fall  of  1861.    A 


UNEQUIVOCAL    UNI0]S"IS5r.  593 

part  of  these  troops  were  set  'o  garrison  the  oitap. 
forts  on  the  Pacific,  a  part  vrei  a  sent  East  by 
steamer,  and  a  column  of  seventeen  companies, 
five  of  them  cavalry,  crossed  the  plains  for  New- 
Mexico.  There  was  no  draft  in  California,  her 
quota  never  having  been  announced  to  the 
provost-marshal. 

She  expressed  her  eagerness  through  the  press 
and  her  representatives  to  furnish  her  full 
quota  of  men  for  the  army,  but  her  great  dis- 
tance from  the  seat  of  war  led  the  Government 
to  decline  her  tendered  aid  to  any  large  extent. 
However,  many  citizens  left  business,  went  East, 
and  entered  the  service,  being  accredited  to 
other  States. 

There  was  not  the  zeal  for  volunteerino^  here 
that  sometimes  swept  over  that  portion  of  the 
North  nearer  to  the  field  of  action ;  for  the 
prospect  of  being  shut  up  in  Pacific  coast  forts, 
or  sent  to  hunt  Indians,  was  not  as  well  calcu- 
lated to  kindle  enthusiasm,  as  when,  by  enlist- 
ing, one  might  reasonably  expect  to  meet  rebel 
foes,  and  expend  on  them  the  indignation  he 
felt  at  the  sie^ht  of  traitors  stru2:2:linQ:  to  over- 
throw  the  best  of  human  governments. 

At  a  time  when  relief  for  wounded  soldiers 
was  most  needed,  citizens  of  the  State  contribu- 
ted seven  hundred  thousand  dollars  in  gold  to 
the  Sanitarv  Commission  ;  and  to  other  orsfan- 
ized  devices  for  aiding  those  on. whom  the  war 

38 


594  THE   HISTOEY    OF   CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  bore  heavily,  tbey  were  proportionately  gener- 

1861-  Congress,  at  the  special  session  of  1861,  im- 
■  posed  a  direct  tax  upon  all  the  States.  Califor- 
nia was  the  first  to  collect  and  pay  her  propor- 
tion, which  amounted  to  nearly  two  hundred  and 
fifty-five  thousand  dollars.  Though  mostly  col- 
lected in  gold,  the  State  Treasurer  paid  it  over 
in  greenbacks,  to  the  great  disgust  and  indigna- 
tion of  the  people,  who  felt  that  such  economy 
was  at  the  expense  of  their  reputation.  The 
Leo-islature  turned  the  difi'erence  in  the  exchans^e 
over  to  the  benefit  of  the  United  States  volun- 
teers from  the  State. 

There  was  only  one  point  on  which  the  pa- 

1863.  triotism  of  California  could  be  misunderstood. 
Gold  and  silver  constituted  the  exclusive  cur- 
rency of  the  State,  yet  United  States  paper, 
which  early  depreciated  from  the  gold  value 
expressed  by  its  face,  had  been  made  a  legal 
tender  by  act  of  Congress.  To  avoid  collisions 
between  debtors  and  creditors,  and  to  maintain 
credit  upon  a  sound  basis,  the  Legislature  of 
1863  enacted  a  law  which  required  the 
payment  of  debts  in  any  specified  currency 
agreed  upon  by  a  written  contract.  The  whole 
mercantile  community  had  urged  the  law. 
Without  it,  they  said,  credit  must  vanish ;  no 
man  would  lend  gold,  or  sell  goods  at  gold 
prices,  when  there  was  danger  that  on  the  day 


CURRENCY   QUESTIOlSrS.  505 

of  settlement  lie  would  be  tendered  depreciated  chap. 
paper  in  payment.     The  opponents  of  tlie  law  ,_^^_ 
protested  that  it  was  a  virtual  nullification  of    1863. 
an  act  of  Congress;  every  State  should  encour. 
age  the  Government  by  accepting  its  money. 
Then,  would  capital  flow  into  a  country  where 
the  national  dollar  lost  half  its  value  making 
the  transit  ? 

The  act  went  into  instant  operation,  and  the  1864. 
same  Supreme  Court  that  pronounced  the  legal- 
tender  act  in  accordance  with  the  Constitution, 
of  the  United  States,  decided  the  specific  con- 
tract act  in  harmony  with  the  State  Constitu- 
tion. The  result  was  gratifying.  Public  sen- 
timent settled  down  upon  the  use  of  two  dis- 
tinct currencies.  Even  without  a  written  con- 
tract it  was  understood  that  an  honorable  man 
paid  his  debts  in  gold,  unless  he  had  originally 
stipulated  to  pay  in  paper.  The  difference  in 
exchange  uj)on  Eastern  capitals  greatly  favored 
purchasers  iu  those  markets  under  the  high 
prices  ruling  there.  Californians,  on  striking 
the  balance,  could  scarcely  discover  that  they 
sujffered  at  all  from  the  war  or  war  prices.  One 
obtains  a  fresh  impression  of  the  extent  of  our 
country  when  he  sees  so  vast  a  war  raging  over 
such  wide  fields,  yet  sees  a  State  within  the 
Union,  sympathizing  heartily  with  the  Govern- 
ment, busy  in  all  the  arts  of  peace,  experiencing 


590  THE   HISTORY   OF   CALIFOENIA. 

CHAP,  no  financial  inconvenience,  and  feeling  no  appre- 

,_^^  ciable  share  of  the  burden. 

1864.  No  political  party  had  dared  for  years  to 
suggest  the  propriety  of  a  tax  upon  the  mines. 
The  General  Government  owned  them,  yet  it  was 
obviously  to  the  general  benefit  that  they  be 
diligently  worked,  and  that  nothing  hinder 
their  production.  Without  the  gold  of  Califor- 
nia the  expenses  of  the  war  could  not  be  met; 
nothing  must  discourage  its  constant  and  steady 
flow.  But  every  thing  else  was  being  roundly 
taxed.  Was  it  right  to  exemj)t  one  business  so 
profitable — one  class  of  laljorers  so  able  to  pay  ? 
In  1864,  Congress  levied  a  tax  of  one-half  of 
one  per  cent,  upon  gold  and  silver  bullion,  to 
be  paid  by  the  assayer ;  and  the  patriotism  of 
the  people  restrained  them  from  even  a  murmur 
of  objection. 

When,  in  November,  the  fairest  of  opportu- 
nities was  afforded,  by  a  Presidential  election, 
to  test  the  sentiment  of  the  State,  the  ticket 
pledged  to  Lincoln  and  Johnson  was  elected  by 
thirty  thousand  majority. 

Californians  could  not  be  indifferent  specta- 
tors of  the  great  events  passing  in  the  Missis- 
sippi Valley  and  the  Atlantic  and  Gulf  States. 
Even  if  they  had  had  no  stake  in  the  struggle 
between  barbarism  and  civilization,  no  share  in 
the  glory  of  establishing  the  Union  in  perpetu- 
ity, or  the  shame  of  permitting  its  dissolution, 


CALirOENIANS    ON   THE    FIELD.  597 

tbey  knew  too  many  of  tlie  actors  on  both  sides  chap. 
to  stand  by  as  cool  observers  without  enio-  ^__^ 
tiou.  1864. 

The  regular  army  and  navy  being  small  be- 
fore the  war,  most  of  the  officers  of  rank  had  in 
their  turn  spent  some  time  upon  the  Pacific 
coast.  Grant  was  lono-  stationed  in  Oreo;on. 
The  leading  men  of  California  were  on  terms  of 
intimacy  with  Sherman,  who  was  resident  part- 
ner of  the  banking  house  of  Lucas,  Turner  & 
Co.,  having  narrowly  escaped  with  his  life  on 
his  arrival,  in  1853,  by  swimming  ashore  from 
the  wreck  of  the  steamer  S.  S.  Lewis,  just 
north  of  the  Golden  Gate ;  with  Farragut,  the 
hero  of  New  Orleans  and  Mobile,  who  was  at 
Mare  Island  diirina;  the  Viojilauce  Committee 
rule ;  with  Hooker,  who  owned  a  ranch  in  So- 
noma County;  with  Fremont,  ^vhose  Mariposa 
estate  embraced  a  notable  gold  mine ;  with 
Halleck  and  Baker  and  Shields,  who  had  prac- 
tised law  in  San  Francisco;  with  Stoneman, 
who  tried  with  Hooker,  but  failed,  to  make  a 
saw-mill  profitable  at  Bodega;  with  McPher- 
son,  who  went  from  Alcatraz  to  the  war,  and 
was  killed  in  front  of  Atlanta;  with  Lander, 
Buell,  Ord,  Keyes,  Heintzelmau,  and  Sumner, 
who  chafed  at  his  long  detention  on  the  Pacific 
side  while  younger  men  were  reaping  such  har- 
vests of  fame;  with  the  veteran  Wool,  with 
Harney,  Denver,  Naglee,  and  Geary,  the  first 


598  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFOKI^A. 

CHAP,  mayor   of  San  Francisco;  with  Hancock  and 

^__^__,  Stone,  Porter,  Boggs,  and  many  others  whose 

1864,    achievements,  in  different  degrees,  contributed 

to  the  lustre  of  American  arms,  and  helped  to 

crush  the  great  rebellion. 

Nor  in  the  enemy's  ranks  were  there  lacking 
men  who  had  cut  some  fio-ure  in  the  State's  his- 
tory.  Gwin  maintained  a  show  of  neutrality  at 
first;  then  escaped  through  the  lines  to  IVIissis- 
sippi.  When  Grant's  army  came  into  those 
parts,  the  house  where  his  daughter  lived  was 
burned ;  the  family  retired  to  Kichmond,  and 
afterwards,  running  the  blockade  at  Wilming- 
ton, escaped  into  France.  Albert  Sydney 
Johnston  went  from  commandinc^  the  Pacific 
Department  to  commanding  Confederate  sol- 
diers. Major  Garnett,  who  was  sent  out  with 
T.  Butler  King  by  President  Taylor,  to  urge 
the  organization  of  a  State  Government,  and 
who  devised  the  State  seal,  which,  with  amend- 
ments, was  adopted,  went  East  when  Virginia 
seceded,  and  fell  in  battle,  rallying  his  men  to 
resist  McClellan's  force  in  West  Virginia.  B.  F. 
Cheatham,  of  Stockton,  was  made  a  major-general 
in  the  Confederate  service,  and  was  at  Belmont 
and  Shiloh,  Perryville,  Murfreesboro',  and 
Chickamauga.  Comptroller  Brooks  was  a  vol- 
unteer aide  in  Cheatham's  staff  at  Chickamauga. 
Calhoun  Benham  was  on  Johnston's  staff  at 
Shiloh,    and    afterwards    with     Breckinridge. 


CALIFOENIANS    ON   THE   FIELD.  599 

Judge  Terry  was  on  Bragg's  staff  at  Cliicka-  cnAP. 
manga.     Magruder,  famous,  when  a  captain  in  ^.^J_, 
tlie  United  States  army  on  this  coast,  for  being    i864. 
so  generally  intoxicated,  had  charge  of  the  de- 
fences of  Yorktown  when  McClellan  attempted 
the  peninsular  route  to  Richmond.     Herbert, 
the  member  of  Congress  who  killed  the  Irish 
waiter,  was  killed  on  occasion   of  Banks's  Eed 
Kiver     expedition.      Many    another    resident, 
whom  California  was  happy  to  spare,  joined  the 
Confederates,  and  kept  their  sympathizers  at 
home  well  posted  with  rebel  news. 

The  patriotism  of  California,  in  its  popular  \ 
form,  was  excessively  radical.  It  believed  in 
the  extirpation  of  slavery  as  the  root  and  cause 
of  the  war.  The  loyal  press  maintained  jealous 
watch  over  suspicious  quarters.  Loyal  Leagues 
were  extensively  organized,  and  did  good  ser- 
vice quietly  in  keeping  the  peace. 

One  little  schooner,  the  Chapman^  was  fitted 
out  from  San  Francisco  secretly,  for  a  piratical 
excursion,  but  she  was  overhauled  before  sail- 
ing, and  confiscated.  The  two  principals  to 
this  nefarious  scheme  were  tried,  convicted,  and 
imprisoned.  But  one  of  them  (Rubery,  the 
Englishman)  was  pardoned  by  the  President, 
at  the  solicitation  of  John  Bright;  the  other 
(Ridgley  Greathouse)  was  released,  after  a  brief 
confinement,  by  Judge  Hoffman's   strict   con- 


600  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFOENIA. 

CHAP,  struction  of  the  President's  Amnesty  Proclama- 

XJj.      .  • 
wy— ^   tlOD. 

1864.  Until  tlie  Presidential  campaign  of  1864,  it 
was  rare  to  hear  a  public  disloyal  utterance  in 
California.  A  few  violent  harauguers,  such  as 
"  General "  Chipman,  E.  J.  C.  Kewen,  and  C.  L. 
Weller,  ex-postmaster  of  San  Francisco,  were 
arrested  and  lods^ed  in  Alcatraz,  for  usins;  trea- 
sonable  language  public!}^  and  defiantly,  but 
their  own  political  friends  refused  them  any 
capital  or  special  consideration  in  the  conven- 
tions on  the  strength  of  their  martyrdom. 
Bi'igadier-General  Wright,  who,  after  Sumner's 
return  East,  and  until  General  McDowell  in 
1864  relieved  him,  had  command  of  the  Pacific 
Department,  was  as  prudent  as  promj)t,  and  as 
delicate  as  firm,  in  the  exercise  of  military  au- 
thority. The  general  unanimity  of  the  people 
made  his  task  easy ;  yet  a  less  judicious  com- 
mander might  have  precipitated  trouble  any 
month. 


EESOUECES    OF   CALIFOENIA.  601 


CHAPTER  XLI. 

RESOURCES   OF  THE  STATE. 

Notwithstanding  that  every  year  more  and  chap. 
more  of  the  treasure  of  the  mines  is  detained  in  /__, 
the  country  for  permanent  investment  in  its  en-    i864. 
terprises,  and  for  improvement  of  its  homes,  the 
export  keeps   steadily  i^n   at   nearly    the   old 
figures.     The  steamers,  for  years  leaving  three 
times  a  month,  with  a  regularity  quite  surpris- 
ing, took  each  more  than  a  million  to  cast  into 
the  circulation  of  the  world.     This  is  a  marvel, 
considering  the  alleged  hazards  of  every  mine, 
and  the  lottery  that  gold-hunting  is  said  to  be, 
even  when  the  enlarged  area  of  the  gold-field  is 
taken   into  account.     It  forces  the  conclusion 
that  the  business,  after  all,  is  much  more  steady 
and  regular  than  is  generally  admitted. 

The  export  of  treasure  from  San  Francisco, 
as  manifested  at  the  Custom-House,  was,  in 
1857,  $48,976,697;  in  1858,  $47,548,025;  in 
1859,  $47,640,462;  in  1860,  $42,303,345;  in 
1861,  $40,639,089  ;  in  1862,  $42,561,761 ;  and 
in  1863,  $46,071,920.  Since  1858,  the  amounts 
named  embrace  several  millions  a  year,  from 


602  THE    HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  mines  outside  of  California  ;  more  than  enoiigh 
^  ■  to  balance  the  increasing  amounts  retained  in 
18G4.  the  State,  for  it  is  not  to  be  doubted  that  the 
gold  yield  of  California,  after  increasing  till 
1853,  when  over  fifty-seven  millions  were  ex- 
ported, has  since  gradually  fallen  ofi",  for  rea- 
sons to  be  named  hereafter. 

The  shallow  placers  or  "  dry  diggings "  of 
1849  and  1850  appeared,  before  1862,  to  be, 
for  profitable  American  work,  about  exhausted. 
They  were  wrought  almost  exclusively  by 
Chinese,  whose  earnings  are  a  clear  gain  to  the 
country,  for  they  glean  with  profit  where  whites 
could  not  make  wasies.  John  hoards  some  of 
it,  but  he  is  a  good  liver  after  his  fashion,  and 
is  by  no  means  a  bad  customer  of  the  moun- 
tain storekeepers.  The  heavy  rains  of  the 
winter  of  1861  and  1862,  by  supplying  the 
mines  with  plenty  of  water  at  just  the  right 
time  for  their  operations,  and  still  more  by  wash- 
ing away  the  accumulated  tailings  of  several 
years'  work,  laid  bare  many  a  rich  deposit,  and 
made  the  placer-mining  profitable  again. 

The  hydraulic  method  still  pays  well,  though 
not  as  well  as  a  year  or  two  ago ;  for  the  rich- 
est hills  have  been  sifted,  and  hydraulicing  in- 
volves such  large  expenditures  for  water,  for 
sluice-boxes,  for  quicksilver,  and  for  gunpowder 
to  loosen  the  compact  gravel,  that,  unless  the 
ground  is  very  rich,  they  cannot  be  afforded. 


VARIOUS    METHODS    OF    MINING.  603 

Very  costly,  rather  risky,  yet,  ou  tlie  wliole,  chap. 
very  remunerative  is  the  system  of  tunnelling,  J_^ 
which,  by  1862,  had  outgrown    in   favor  most    i864. 
other  methods.     It  bores  deep  into  mountains 
to  the  supposed  beds  of  ancient  rivers.     The 
peril  of  missing  the  deposit  is  great,  but  when 
it  is  hit  the  reward  is  munificent. 

Attempts  to  separate  gold  from  the  quartz 
rock  were  early  made  on  a  large  scale,  and 
with  results  that  discouraged  capitalists.  In 
1856  quartz-mining  took  a  new  start,  and 
now  there  is  not  a  mining  county  in  the 
State  but  has  several  large,  expensive,  well- 
appointed  mills,  stamping  and  crushing  the 
rock  to  a  powder,  and  yielding  lucrative  re- 
turns to  owners. 

The  yield  of  gold  has  been  further  affected 
by  drought,  by  excessive  rains,  and  lately  by  a 
series  of  rushes  to  other  mining  fields,  that 
threatened  to  leave  the  interior  of  the  State  a 
desert:  to  Fraser  Kiver,  in  1858,  draining  the 
State,  it  was  estimated,  of  twenty  thousand  of  its 
population,  most  of  which,  however,  found  its 
way  back  again  not  long  afterwards ;  to  Washoe, 
in  1860  and  1861,  when  about  the  same  num- 
ber crossed  from  California  to  the  eastern  slope 
of  the  Sierra  Nevadas,  and  most  of  them  stayed 
there ;  to  the  Salmon  River,  and  other  Wash- 
ington Territory  placers,  in  1861  and  1862  ;  to 
Idaho,  as   the   Salmon   River  district  is   now 


n04  THE   HISTOEY    OF   CALIFOElSriA. 

CHAP,  called,  and  Arizona,  in  1863  ;  and  to  Idaho,  tlie 

Colorado  region,  and.  Mexico,  m  1864. 
18G4.  These  annual  rushes  have  left  many  a  local- 
ity, that  was  all  alive  with  busy,  boisterous 
men  in  the  fall,  desolate  and  silent  in  the 
spring ;  and  many  a  village  that  was  full  of 
excitement  in  1858,  is  now  drowsy  and  still, 
having  parted  with  half  its  population  since 
then.  The  largest  interior  cities  suffered  much 
by  the  depletion.  Sacramento  has  not  the  pop- 
ulation to-day  that  it  had  four  years  ago; 
Marysville's  growth  was  checked,  Stockton's 
progress  arrested,  though  not  so  violently. 

Since  the  spring  of  1861,  mines  of  silver, 
copper,  and  coal  have  been  opened  within  the 
State.  The  silver  veins  of  finest  promise  were 
chiefly  found  in  the  tier  of  counties  lying  along 
the  western  base  of  the  Sierra  Nevada,  and  in 
the  Owen's  River  region. 

Of  copper,  the  richest  and  most  explored  de- 
posits are  in  Calaveras  County,  where  the  new 
business  has  started  a  new  city  into  existence — 
Copperopolis.  The  copper  ore  is  convertible 
into  cash  at  the  mouth  of  the  mine.  It  is  all 
smelted  abroad,  and  no  outlay  for  mills  or  fur- 
naces is  required.  The  ore  goes  East  or  to 
Europe  as  freight,  and  already  appreciably  helps 
returning  ships  to  eke  out  a  return  cargo. 

The  coal  is  not  of  the  secondary,  but  of  the 
tertiary  formation,   good   enough  for  creating 


WEW    MINEEAL   DISCO^TEEIES.  605 

steam  or  for  purposes  of  fuel,  but  not  the  best  chap. 
to  work  iron  witli.     It  is  bituminous,  breaks  Jl.^_, 
readily,  kindles  easily,  and  burns  with  a  flame.    1864. 
It  is  already  produced  in  large  quantity,  and  at 
a  price  that  makes  it  uuj)rofitable  to  import 
coal  for  ordinary  uses. 

Inexhaustible  quantities  of  iron  have  been 
developed,  but  none  is  yet  rendered  available 
for  use.  Asphaltum  in  immense  beds,  and  pe- 
troleum springs,  if  geologists  and  experts  are  to 
be  trusted,  are  found  in  the  southern  part  of 
the  State.  The  former  article,  taken  from  the 
sea-shore,  near  Santa  Barbara,  is  already  exten- 
sively used  for  pavements  and  roofs. 

Besides  these  staples,  other  useful  minerals,  in 
wonderful  variety  and  astonishing  abundance, 
are  found.  Boi'ax — a  lake  of  it— salt,  soda,  sul- 
phur, flavoring  a  thousand  springs,  chalk,  gyp- 
sum, nitre,  marble,  and  building-stone — the 
cataloojue  of  those  not  found  here  would  be 
briefer  than  of  those  which  are — are  plenty. 
Yet  some  that  make  up  the  bulk  of  mountains, 
and  are  quite  accessible,  must  wait  for  capital 
to  abound,  and  wages  to  fall,  before  coming 
into  market. 

A  curious  mania  possessed  the  people  through 
1863.      "Prospecting"   was   the   fever  in   the    1863. 
blood   of    the    masses.      There   was   a   gener- 
al scouring  of  the  State ;   a  ransacking  in  all 
gulches ;  a  testing  of  the  character  of  the  rocks 


006  THE   HISTOEY    OF    CAXIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  in  all  localities.      In  the  most  isolated  resrions, 

XLI  •      •  •   •  o  7 

^_^_,  and  up  to  the  fire  limits  of  the  cities,  there  were 
1863.  little  parties  of  men  with  pick  and  hammer 
breaking  off  the  oiitcroppings  of  ledges,  and 
with  acids  testing  them  for  copper,  silver,  quick- 
silver, and  other  metals.  Astonishino;  results 
followed.  The  coveted  minerals  were  found 
in  thousands  of  places.  In  the  "cow  counties" 
as  well  as  in  the  mining  counties,  in  the  Coast 
Rano^e  as  well  as  in  the  foot-hills  of  the  Sierras, 
north  and  south,  and  up  to  the  bluffs  of  the 
ocean,  amazing  discoveries  were  reported. 

These  prospecters  generally  had  their  ex- 
penses paid  by  a  company,  the  members  at  home 
furnishing  capital,  and  the  travellers  the  work. 
Other  enterprising  men  went  out  alone,  and  on 
their  own  account,  searched  diligently,  and 
when  they  found  what  they  sought,  broke  off 
a  bagful  of  specimens,  entered  their  claims  at 
the  nearest  Recorder's  ofiice,  and  hastened  to 
San  Francisco  to  organize  a  company  to  hold 
and  develop  them. 

There  was,  no  doubt,  a  great  deal  of  false  in- 
formation paraded,  and  many  companies  located 
on  ledges  that  had  no  existence,  to  open  "  leads  " 
entirely  imaginary.  Yet  the  greater  number 
acted  upon  honest  if  mistaken  reports ;  if  the 
members  had  visited  the  locality  where  their 
hopes  lay  locked,  they  would  not  have  been 
undeceived ;  though  now  to  see  the  spot  would 


A   illNING-STOCK   MANIA.  607 

excite  only  merriment  at  tlie  tliouglit  tliat  sucli  chap. 
a  commonplace  rock  could  be  accepted  as  the 
corner-stone  of  tlie  grand  fortune  fancy  once  i864. 
reared  on  it.  More  than  a  thousand  companies 
were  organized  in  the  State.  Brokers'  offices, 
with  their  windows  full  of  choice  specimens, 
threatened  to  monopolize  the  best  business 
stands  in  the  cities.  Long-established  firms 
sacrificed  the  advertisement  of  their  plate-glass 
windows,  brokers  offering  such  tempting  rent 
for  a  desk  and  a  few  feet  of  glazed  frontage. 
Several  boards  of  brokers  were  started,  where 
shares  in  all  sorts  of  companies  were  sold  and 
reported  daily. 

The  assessments  upon  stockholders  in  the  ^ 
mining  companies  were  very  light  at  first,  just 
enough  to  pay  for  office  rent,  a  set  of  books,  the 
engraving  of  a  handsome  certificate  of  stock, 
and  possibly  to  keep  a  man  or  two  developing 
the  claim. 

Almost  everybody  bought  mining  stock. 
Nothing  but  war  news  could  check  the  perpet- 
ual talk  of  "  feet,"  "  outcroppings,"  "  indica- 
tions," sulphurets,"  and  "  ores."  No  profession 
or  class,  age  or  sex,  was  exempt  from  the  epi- 
demic. Shrewd  merchants  and  careful  bankers 
invested  the  profits  of  their  legitimate  l)usiness, 
sometimes  infringed  upon  their  invested  capital. 
Sharp  hiwyers  sold  their  homesteads  for  shares. 
Clerks  anticipated  their  salaries,  laborers  "  salt- 


608  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  ed  away  "  their  wages,  and  washerwomen  their 
earnings  in  "  promising  mines." 

18G4.  Some,  getting  their  "feet"  rapidly  off  their 
hands  at  an  advance,  made  large  gains,  and 
their  good  luck  stimulated  all  the  rest.  Oftener, 
as  the  assessments  increased,  the  shareholders 
agreed  to  consider  the  company  that  hired  them 
a  "bilk,"  forfeit  the  stock,  and  plunge  the  deep- 
er into  some  other  stock,  to  make  amends.  The 
lists  of  delinquent  stockholders  had  to  be  pub- 
lished for  a  given  time,  before  the  shares  could 
be  sold  at  auction.  These  lists  occupied  a  full 
page  in  more  than  one  of  the  largest  newspapers 
daily.  It  excited  no  surprise  to  see  the  sound- 
est merchants'  names  fiourinjx  in  these  lists  for 
large  delinquencies,  nor  did  it  damage  their 
credit.  Perhaps  they  "were  there  to  "  bear  the 
stock  " — then  the  small  holders  would  clinor  the 
tighter,  determined  not  to  be  "frozen  out." 
Commercial  speculations  were  almost  entirely 
neglected,  and  Front  Street  took  its  heaviest 
risks  in  feet.  The  companies  always  had  a 
nominal  capital  of  immense  amount.  Any 
thing  under  hundreds  of  thousands  of  dollars 
was  deemed  a  small  affair. 

The  euo-raved  minins-.field  was  not  limited 
to  California.  The  prospecters  and  claim-takers 
traversed  the  desert  far  east  of  Virginia  City 
and  A\u*ora,  and  made  populous  the  barren 
mountains  of  Reese  River  and  Humboldt.  They 


A   MINING-STOCK   MANIA.  609 

crossed    the    Colorado   to   the   San   Francisco  chap. 
Mountains  of  Arizona.     They  "  took  up "  the    ^     ' 
islands  of  the  coast.     They  overran  the  Mexican    i8G4. 
border,  and  to   the  eastward  of  the  Gulf  of 
California,  and  among  the  sterile  mountains  of 
Lower  California  made  their  camps. 

A  stranger  coming  into  the  State  and  inocu- 
lated against  the  strange  infection,  in  view  of 
the  immense  nominal  capital  of  the  companies, 
observing  how  every  knot  of  men  discussed 
little  lumps  of  commonplace  rock,  and  talked 
geologically,  hearing  the  wild  talk  of  Presidents, 
Secretaries,  and  Directors  as  to  the  value  of 
their  claims,  yet  noting  that  many  a  President 
of  a  company  incorporated  for  a  million  dollars 
could  not  pay  for  his  lunch  in  lack  of  either 
cash  or  credit,  would  have  pronounced  it  a 
sw^eeping  madness,  in  wdiich  high  and  low,  edu- 
cated and  ignorant,  men,  w^omen,  and  children, 
timid  capitalists  and  penniless  paupers,  were 
alike  involved. 

Some  said  they  had  seen  fortune  beckon  be- 
fore, and,  in  their  scepticism  refusing  to  follow, 
lost  W'hat  proved  to  be  a  splendid  chance ;  they 
trusted  they  were  wiser  now.  Some  bought  as 
speculators,  seldom  paying  cash,  l)ut  exchanging 
scrip — "wild-cat"  for  "promising,"  and  that  for 
dividend-paying,  of  which,  curiously  enough, 
there  were  but  four  or  five  companies  in  the 
market,  for  few  of  the  old,  faithfully -wrought 

39 


610  THE    HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  mines  were  called  on  Exchange.     Their  hope 
was  that,  by  turning  over  their  purchases  every 

1863.  few  days,  and  selling  enough  to  pay  assessments, 
they  would  escape  every  peril  of  loss ;  and  they 
did,  until  the  crash  came,  and  they  still  had  a 
hatful  on  hand  worth  only  its  weight  at  the 
paper-makers.  Others  said  the  man  ^\as  a  fool 
who  neglected  such  an  opportimity,  and  sent 
for  all  their  brothers  to  come  out  with  what 
they  could  scrape  together  and  be  rich. 

If  one  said  the  whole  thing  was  a  delusion, 
he  was  pointed  to  the  fact  that  the  founderies 
were  busy  day  and  night  filling  orders  for  ma- 
chinery to  go  to  these  mines  in  Mexico,  Nevada, 
and  unnamed  because  unkno\\Ti  regions  both 
near  and  afar  off.  The  few  sober  ones,  who 
were  not  carried  away  by  the  excitement,  held 
that,  while  many  must  suffer  as  the  result  of 
their  stock  speculations,  the  general  effect  of  the 
prospecting  out  of  which  tliey  grew  would  not 
be  bad ;  that  the  soil  of  the  State,  for  all  this 
ransacking,  would  develop  a  noble  harvest  of 
minerals  at  some  early  future  day. 

The  bubble  biirst  without  any  noise  of  ex- 

1864.  plosion.  In  the  summer  of  1864  there  was  a 
sudden  fall  in  the  shares  of  the  few  dividend- 
paying  mines.  Ophir  dropped  fifty  per  cent. ; 
Gould  and  Curry,  which  had  been  taken  as  the 
standard  of  successful  mines,  sank  still  more. 
Then  the  wild-cat  quietly  stole  out  of  sight. 


THE   BUBBLE   BURSTS.  611 

The  brokers  vacated  their  offices ;  a  few  men  chap. 
went  into  insolvency.  The  masses  pocketed  ,^,^^,^ 
their  losses,  and  said  little  about  them.  They  1864. 
filed  away  their  certificates  of  stock,  lately  so 
carefully  treasured,  as  curious,  useless  pictures, 
tokens  of  experience  gained,  and  pushed  on 
with  their  legitimate  business.  It  is  astonish- 
ing, considering  the  amount  of  money  that 
changed  hands  during  the  popular  possession 
by  this  mania,  how  few  were  seriously  injured 
by  it.  Wages  were  good,  salaries  high,  busi- 
ness brisk.  Thej^  paid  high  for  their  expe- 
rience, and -could  afl:brd  it.  The  map  of  the 
country  was  written  over  with  the  localities  of 
mineral  deposits  rich  and  abiding,  though  it 
might  not  pay  to  work  them  for  some  time  to 
come.  The  prospecters  had  made  a  geological 
reconnoissance  in  force.  As  of  all  such  prelimi- 
nary surveys,  the  advantages  were  not  imme- 
diately developed. 

Agriculture  grows  rapidly  in  importance. 
Thouoh  little  more  than  a  third  of  the  area  of 
the  State  is  tillable  land,  not  over  a  fortieth 
part  of  that  tillable  portion  is  cultivated.  With 
the  disadvantage  of  a  summer  so  dry  that  much 
of  the  grain  land  will  not,  or  rather  has  not  pro- 
duced vegetables  and  fruit  without  irrigation, 
the  farmer  is  amply  compensated  in  the  warmth 
of  the  winter,  the  length  of  the  growing  season, 
the  prolific  chai*acter  of  all  vegetable  life  in  Cali- 


612  THE   HISTORY   OF   CALIFOKNIA. 

CHAP,  fornia,  and  the  neetllessness  of  barns  and  gran- 
aries. No  vegetal)les  are  raised  between  Bos- 
1804.  ton  and  Charleston  that  do  not  thrive  in  its 
soil.  Fruit  in  every  variety,  common  in  seaii- 
tropical  or  temperate  climates,  comes  into  early 
bearing,  and  for  abundance,  size,  or  flavor,  has 
no  competitor. 

It  is  held  by  some  who  have  been  in  the 
business  abroad,  that  there  is  no  better  grape 
land.  All  foreign  varieties  flourish,  as  well  as 
the  old  mission  stock.  The  crop  never  fails. 
No  disease  affects  the  vines  thus  far,  and  they 
are  productive  beyond  precedent.  Our  wine  is 
in  the  Eastern  markets,  and,  though  susceptil)le 
of  great  improvement,  stands  well,  and  is  likely 
to  be  in  greater  demand  every  year. 

It  is  settled  that  California  can  feed  herself, 
and  compete  on  favorable  terms  in  supplying 
Europe  when  its  grain  crop  fails.  The  Califor- 
nia wheat  exceeds  in  strength  and  dryness, 
qualities  that  especially  adapt  it  for  transporta- 
tion through  the  tropics.  The  same  qualities 
added  to  its  whiteness,  thin  skin,  plumpness 
and  \veight,  make  it  a  favorite  in  all  markets. 
In  18G1  the  wheat  and  flour  exported  from  San 
Francisco  was  valued  half  a  million  of  dollars 
higher  than  the  provisions  imported,  including 
tea,  coffee,  and  spices. 

Hitherto  little  has  been  manufactured  in 
California  which  could  be  as   well   imjDorted. 


EXPORTS    AND    IMPOETS.  613 

Wao;es,  though  still  hisfher  than  in   any  other  chap. 

...  .  XLI 

equally  civilized  country,  are  gradually  falling, 
and  with  their  fall  manufactures  will  multiply.    1864. 

Nothing  else  prevents  the  making  of  our 
finest  woollen  cloths,  for  the  finest  qualities  of 
wool  are  liberally  produced.  The  experiments 
tJiat  have  been  made  in  manufacturing  the 
coarser  woollen  goods,  glass,  powdei',  paper,  and 
wooden  ware,  are  flattering.  Raising  no  cotton, 
smelting  .no  iron  as  yet,  here  are  large  classes 
of  goods  long  hence  to  be  imported.  We  make 
our  own  lumber,  and  export  much,  but  since 
there  is  a  lack  of  tough  woods  in  the  State,  our 
cari'iages,  or  at  least  our  carriage  materials, 
must  be  impoited. 

San  Francisco  is  inevitably  destined  to  be 
the  principal  port  of  the  Pacific.  Her  imports 
and  her  exports  are  about  equal.  Of  the  latter, 
gold  is  the  chief.  It  is  easy  to  handle,  and  the 
market  is  always  clamorous  for  it.  Unlike 
wheat,  which  becomes  a  drug  whenever  all 
.wheat-fields  yield  abundantly,  our  principal  ex- 
port always  commands  a  fixed,  unvarying  price. 

Of  our  other  exports,  hides  are  at  present  an 
important  item,  but  that  resource  will  fail  as 
better  notions  of  ranching  come  into  fashion, 
and  cattle  are  esteemed  for  something  else  than 
their  hides  and  tallow.  Besides  the  vast 
amounts  of  quicksilver  used  in  the  State,  more 
than  a  million  dollars'*  worth  was  exported  in 


614  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP.  1861.     The  silver  and  copper  ore  sent  abroad 

are  rapidly  increasing.     The  exports  other  than 

18G4.    gold  in   1861   equalled  more  than  one-sixth  of 

the  gold   export— a  fact  of  great  significance 

and  promise. 

Of  the  arrivals,  during  the  year  named,  nearly 
half  the  tonnage  was  from  domestic  Pacific 
ports.  Since  then,  the  trade  with  Mexico  has 
grown  beyond  calculation,  and  that  with  the 
northern  coast  enjoys  a  wholesome  increase. 
The  tonnage  arriving  from  China  was  almost 
equal  to  that  from  Europe.  Ever}^  year  more 
and  more  whalers  turn  in  for  supplies. 

Business  constantly  assumes  more  stability, 
and  less  the  character  of  speculation.  In  1859, 
the  applications  for  the  benefit  of  the  insolvent 
act  were  less  than  one-third  the  applications 
in  1855,  and  the  number  still  decreases.  Yet^ 
the  ruling  rate  of  interest,  from  one  per  cent,  a 
month  on  the  best  securities,  to  two  and  a  half 
per  cent.,  shows  that  capital  still  regards  all 
business  as  perilous,  or,  at  least,  acts  on  the  sus- 
picion. 

Gold  and  silver  coins  of  the  United  States 
are  the  almost  exclusive  currency,  but  no  coin 
less  than  a  dime  is  in  general  use,  though  half- 
dimes  are  occasionally  given  and  taken  at  retail 
stores  in  the  cities.  Coppers  and  nickels  are 
curious  rarities.  Lesral-tender  notes  of  the 
United  States  are  accepted  for  Federal  taxes, 


EXPORTS    AND    IMPORTS.  Cl 


Ibr  judgments  rendered  (in  default  of  a  specific  chap. 
contract)  or  fines  inflicted  by  the  courts.  Other-      ^^' 
wise  they  pass  only  at  the  ruling  discount  from    i864. 
gold. 


010  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFOENIA. 


CHAPTER  XLII. 

QUARRELS    WITH  NATURE.— COMPENSATIONS   FOR 
APPARENT  MISFORTUNES. 

CHAP.     It  has  been  supposed  that  Nature,  so  lavish 

XT  TT  •  ... 

^_^'  of  gifts  to  California,  like  a  jealous  lover,  had 
1864.  many  quaiTels  with  her.  If  it  w^as  so  in  the 
beginning,  time,  society,  and  the  presence  of 
stran2:ers  are  effectiuof  a  cure. 

The  earthquakes  which  tradition  and  the 
early  Mission  records  make  really  serious  affairs 
though  frequent,  have  seldom  of  late  done  even 
the  slightest  harm.  They  inspire  no  more 
terror  than  a  thunderstorm  at  the  East,  and  are 
less  to  be  dreaded. 

Ignorance,  or  neglect  of  the  warnings  of  na- 
tives and  old  residents,  exposed  the  sites  of 
several  inland  cities  to  overflow  from  the  streams 
on  whose  banks  they  were  built.  Thus  Sacra- 
mento was  flooded  January,  1850,  in  March, 
1852,  and  from  Christmas  of  that  year  to  New 
Years  of  1853,  while  the  place  was  still  black 
with  the  ruins  of  the  great  November  fire,  that 
destroyed  the  entire  business  portion  of  the 
city;  and  Marysville  was  flooded  in  1852.    Ex- 


FLOODS.  617 

perience  taught  the  necessity  of  building  strong  guar 
levees  above  the  level  of  the  river  at  flood,  and  v_^ 
of  raising  the  street  grades.  1864. 

This  done,  the  cities  enjoyed  immunity  from 
floods  until  the  winter  of  18G1-2,  when  double 
the  amount  of  rain  fell  that  California  had  seen 
any  year  since  the  American  conquest.  The 
snows  on  the  mountains  melted  under  the 
warm  rain,  and  the  rivers,  whose  beds  were 
filled  with  the  tailings  from  the  mines,  soon 
overflow^ed  their  banks. 

The  Sacramento  levees  would  have  held  up 
against  it,  but  that  a  railroad  company  had 
carelessly  filled  in  with  an  embankment  a  space 
intended  to  be  left  as  a  bridge.  The  waters  of 
the  American,  overflowing  above  the  city,  and 
being  prevented  by  the  dam  of  the  railroad  em- 
bankment from  passing  oft"  behind  it,  flowed 
over  the  eastern  levee  and  filled  the  city.  This 
was  the  9th  of  December.  In  a  few  hours  the 
southern  levee  burst,  and  the  waters  in  the  city 
began  to  subside — small  houses,  furniture,  cattle, 
and  horses  being  carried  away  in  the  torrent 
throusrh  the  crevasse.  A  million  dollars'  worth 
of  property  was  destroyed  in  this  brief  sub- 
mergence, and  more  than  five  thousand  sufferers 
required  aid  from  the  Howard  Association  of 
Sacramento,  which. disbursed  some  sixty  thou- 
sand dollars  for  their  relief,  two-thirds  of  it 
being  contributed  by  San  Francisco. 


618  THE   HISTORY    OF   CALLFOPwNIA. 

On  the  lOth  of  January,  1862,  the  flood  came 
ao-ain,  stronijer  and  more  devastatinsj  than  he- 
1862.  fore.  The  effort  to  repair  the  levees  had  proved 
a  failure.  As  the  waters  rose  in  their  dwell- 
ings, the  occupants  of  the  larger  buildings  took 
to  the  upper  stories.  Those  in  smaller  houses 
either  fled  to  the  pavilion  prepared  for  them, 
or,  if  too  late  for  that,  climbed  up  on  beds,  ta- 
bles, chairs,  keeping  their  flag  or  light  of  distress 
out  to  guide  the  relief-boats  to  theii*  rescue. 
The  streets  for  weeks  were  traversed  only  by 
l)oats.  From  the  capitol  roof  no  land  ^vas  vis- 
ible in  or  near  the  city,  except  a  small  portion 
of  the  levee.  Perhaps  half  the  population  of 
fifteen  thousand  sought  refuge  temporarily  in 
other  cities,  chiefly  in  San  Francisco,  which  sent 
up  relief  steamers  with  cooked  provisions, 
money,  and  men,  and  put  Piatt's  Hall  at  the 
service  of  the  rescued. 

But  not  Sacramento  alone ;  Stockton,  Marys- 
ville,  Napa,  Knight's  Ferry,  lone,  Jacksonville, 
and  numerous  other  places  were  drowned. 
Houses,  furniture,  goods,  fences  were  washed 
away.  The  cattle  crowded  in  herds  to  the 
knolls,  and  in  herds  perished,  as,  after  days  of 
shivering  and  starvation,  they  tumbled  into  the 
sea.  Their  carcasses  dotted  the  plains  a  year 
latei'.  From  the  foot-hills  of  the  Sierra  to  those 
of  the  Coast  Kaui^e,  from  tlie  foot  of  Shasta  to 
the  hills  that  lead  up  to  the  Tehon  Pass,  all  the 


FLOODS.  619 

plain  was  converted  into  a  lake,  not  unlike  in  chap. 

•  •       •  •      •  XLTI 

shape  and  size  Lake  Michigan.  This  immense 
body  of  water  discharged  itself  through  Suisun  1862. 
Bay,  the  Straits  of  Carquines,  San  Francisco 
Bay,  and  the  Golden  Gate  to  the  ocean.  The 
height  of  the  waters  in  the  bay  was  not  much 
increased,  but  there  ceased  to  flow  in  any  flood- 
tide  throuQ^h  the  Golden  Gate,  For  weeks  the 
turbid  yellow  stream  rolled  continuously  out, 
bearing  tules,  brush,  and  trees  with  it  fur  out 
to  sea. 

Is  a  flood  to  be  anticipated  j^eriodically  ?  Is 
it  to  be  provided  against  and  still  dreaded? 
The  straits  at  the  head  of  Suisun  Bay  were  too 
narrow  an  outlet  for  the  waters  accumulated  in 
the  Sacramento  and  San  Joaquin  valleys;  that 
cause  of  a  wide-spread  overflow  is  not  likely  to 
be  remedied  until  some  other  similar  disaster 
indicates  the  necessity.  But  the  flood  itself 
washed  out  the  tailings  from  thousands  of 
flumes  that  had  filled  the  river-beds.  As  there 
will  be  less  hereafter  than  heretofore  of  the 
kind  of  minino;  which  disturbs  the  courses  of 
the  rivers,  that  prominent  cause  of  floods  is  to 
a  large  extent  removed.  The  exposed  cities 
have  lifted  their  main  streets  and  levees  above 
the  highest  water-mark.  The  farmers  on  the 
plains  recognize  the  advantage  of  erecting  their 
houses  on  a  shallow  mound,  or  at  least  of  hav- 
ing one  spot  of  higher  ground  on  their  premises 


620  THE    HISTOEY    OF    CALIFOENIA. 

CHAP,  as  a  place  of  refuge  for  the  cattle.  As  there 
had  been  no  precedent  for  such  a  flood  mthin 
1862.  the  memory  of  living  men  in  the  State,  so  no 
other  such  is  anticipated,  especially  as  the 
change  from  sluice  and  placer  and  hydraulic 
to  quartz  mining,  will  diminish  the  main  cause 
of  overflows  that  is  subject  to  liuman  control. 

California  has  occasionally  suffered  in  several 
leading  interests  from  drought.  The  stranger 
travelling  through  the  southern  part  of  the  State 
in  the  late  summer  or  early  fall,  would  fancy  him- 
self on  a  desert.  The  rivers  that  were  swollen 
in  December,  are  mere  rills  in  their  broad,  dry 
beds.  The  earth  that  in  May  was  carpeted  with 
verdure,  and  gay  w^ith  an  endless  variety  of 
flowers,  is  brown,  and  no  sign  of  grass  appears. 
Yet,  to  his  astonishment,  thousands  of  cattle 
browse  on  the  apparent  desert  and  grow  fat. 
Closer  examination  shows  the  earth  covered  with 
the  l)urs  and  stalks  of  a  clover  which  the  cattle 
enjoy  and  thrive  on  finely.  With  the  first  rains 
of  November  the  grasses  start,  and  as  the  win- 
ter deepens  and  spring  approaches,  flowers  of  all 
hues  glorify  the  abimdant  pasture-grounds. 

But  occasionally  the  fall  rains  come  early  and 
spoil  the  dry  feed,  and  the  spring  rains  late, 
which  is  hard  for  the  cattle ;  or  the  rains  fail 
altogether. 

The  season  of  1809  and  1810  was  an  almost 
rainless   one.     The  old   missionaries  took  the 


DEOUGHTS.  621 

hint,  and  after  that  saw  that  a  stock  of  corn,  chap. 
dried  beef,  and  beans  sufficient  for  two  years 
were  laid  in.    They  set  their  Indians  to  fishing,   i862. 
too,  that  the  sea  might  on  emergency  eke  out 
the  food-supplies  of  the  land. 

Again  in  1820  and  1821  there  was  little  rain. 
The  great  flocks  and  herds  were  straitened  for 
pasture,  and,  by  order  of  Governor  Sola,  hun- 
dreds of  mares  were  killed,  to  save  the  pasture 
they  would  eat.  The  Indians  were  sent  out  by 
the  Fathers  to  gather  j)iue-nuts  and  acorns,  and 
thus  economize  their  store. 

Between  1828  and  1830,  a  drought  of  nearly 
t\io  years'  duration  afflicted  the  land,  so  that, 
as  was  estimated,  forty  thousand  cattle  died. 
The  crop3  (of  the  Southern  Missions)  were 
scarcely  more  than  sufficed  for  seed,  and  the 
wells  and  S2:)rings  of  Monterey  gave  out. 

In  1840  and  1841,  there  was  no  rain  at  the 
soutb  for  fourteen  months,  but  the  range  of  the 
cattle  was  greater,  and  they  suffered  less  than 
before.  It  is  said  that  in  1855  and  1856,  there 
were  seventy  thousand  cattle  lost  below  Mon- 
terey— dying  of  starvation  and  cold,  after  the 
fall  rains  destroyed  the  old  feed,  and  before  the 
new  was  fit  to  be  eaten. 

The  winters  of  1862-3  aild  1863-4  were 
unusually  dry,  and  the  cattle  of  the  South  suf- 
fered severely.  Thousands  were  driven  to  the 
Matanzas  to  be  slaughtered  for  their  hides,  and 


622  THE   HISTORY   OF    CALTFORTTIA. 

CHAP,  other  thousands,  too  much  wasted  to  endure 
^_^  the  drive  to  the  coast,  perished  on  the  phiins. 
1862.  The  grain  crop  of  the  central  part  of  the  State 
was  scarcely  half  what  was  expected.  But  the 
Kussian  River  region,  and  certain  other  locali- 
ties near  the  coast  and  in  the  foot-hills,  were 
singularly  favored  with  rain,  so  that  there  was 
no  scarcity  of  grain,  and  in  the  short  supply 
the  farmers  got  for  their  small  crops  about  as 
much  as  for  their  larirer  ones  before. 

The  apparent  misfortunes  of  California  have 
not  generally  proved  as  serious  hinderances  to 
her  growth  as  was  anticipated.  Some  of  them 
have  soon  discovered  themselves  blessin^rs  »in 
disguise,  while  some,  though  very  costly  and 
at  first  glance  altogether  ruinous,  have  de- 
veloped afterwards  undreamed-of  compensa- 
tions. Fires  in  the  early  days  ravaged  the 
towns,  and  the  value  of  the  destroyed  improve- 
ments seemed  utterly  lost.  The  Mission  Fa- 
thers used  to  require  the  Indians  to  build  their 
huts  of  combustible  material,  so  that  when 
they  became  intolerably  filthy  they  could  be 
burned  down  and  out  of  the  way.  Some  of 
our  early  fires  did  the  same  kindly  office  for 
the  pioneers.  Often  badly  chosen  sites  for 
cities  were  deserted  because  a  fire  swept  off  all 
that  tempted  the  settlers — already  aware  of 
their  mistake — to  stay,  and  then  a  better  site 
was  chosen.     The  floods,  that  seemed  to  fetch 


COMPENSATION   FOR   APPARENT   MISFORTUNES.       623 

nothing  but  ruin,  had  their  compensations,  chap. 
Interior  towns,  built  below  a  safe  grade,  were 
graded  up  while  it  cost  comparatively  little  to  1862. 
do  it,  and  levees  were  seasonably  constructed ; 
sterile  hill-sides  were  made  fruitful ;  the  breadth 
of  the  grain  crop  largely  extended  fi'om  the  val- 
leys up  the  slopes ;  the  tailings  of  old  mines 
were  washed  off,  and  new  placers  revealed. 

The  drought  of  1863  and  1864  was  not  alto- 
gether evil.  The  markets  of  meats,  vegetables, 
and  grains  were  still  abundantly  supplied,  and 
the  enhanced  prices  made  the  round  year  a 
better  one  than  its  flushed  predecessor,  for  many 
farmers  and  ranchmen.  If  the  event  shows 
that  the  negligent  system  prevalent  in  the 
southern  counties  is  to  any  large  degree  aban- 
doned by  the  owners  of  herds,  the  drought 
will  prove  to  have  benefited  them  immeasura- 
bly. A  man  owns  a  hundred  wild  cattle,  and 
cannot  produce  a  poun-d  of  butter  or  cheese 
from  them  :  to  get  a  glass  of  milk,  perhaps  will 
require  an  hour's  labor  with  a  vaquero  to  lasso 
the  "tame  cow,"  and  an  assistant  or  two  to 
milk  her.     If  drouo-ht  or  flood  or  famine  will 

o 

conspire  to  break  up  the  lazy  style  of  herding 
and  farming  at  the  south,  the  plains  that  are 
at  times  deserts  may  become  fruitful  prairies, 
and  homesteads  dot  the  long,  dreary,  solitary 
leasfues  that  lie  waste  between  San  Juan  and 
Los  Angeles.     A  dozen  well-conditioned  tame 


624  THE    HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  cattle  might  make  richer  than  he  is  the  owner 
■^^^"  of  hundreds  of  wild  cattle,  worth  only  the  tal- 
1862.    low  and  hides  of  their  carcasses. 

Every  enforced  change  in  the  method  of 
mining  has  seemed  to  threaten  ruin,  yet  gen- 
erally has  resulted  in  permanent  benefit  to  the 
region  accepting  the  change.  The  exhausted 
placers  went  into  the  hands  of  Chinamen,  whose 
aggregate  washings  and  pickings  are  all  clear 
gain  to  the  gold  in  circulation.  The  old  placer 
diggers,  provided  wdth  the  capital  that  the  pan 
and  rocker  helped  them  to,  turned  to  tunnels 
and  hydraulics,  which  paid  better  dividends. 
When  the  richest  hills  are  worked  and  sifted, 
and  water  charges  are  too  high  to  leave  hydrau- 
licing  profitable  any  longer,  the  rivers  scoop 
out  their  beds  ascain,  and  the  dano-er  of  floods 
is  reduced.  In  some  of  the  rivers,  where  three 
years  ago  only  a  thin,  yellow,  muddy  stream 
was  moviuo'  the  bars  alreadv  be2:in  to  be  re- 
moved,  and  the  channel  to  deepen,  along  which 
pours  a  clear  tide  again,  reminding  the  early 
settlers  of  the  look  it  bore  when  they  fii'st  saw 
it.  Again,  every  failure  of  a  paying  bar  dis- 
perses a  camp  of  miners  to  prospecting,  and 
new  resources  are  bi'oULiht  to  lioht.  The  re- 
turning  wave  from  Washoe,  in  1861,  developed 
the  copper  of  Calaveras,  and  many  a  deposit  of 
silver;  for  the  miners,  when  not  too  fiercely 
bitten  with  the  fuiy  for  the  last  discovery,  pick 


COMPENSATION   FOK    APPARENT   MISFORTUNES.       625 

both  ways  as  tliey  travel,  and,  es]iecially  as  chap. 
tliey  return,  question  all  the  promising  crop-  _^'_^. 
pings,  and  are  geological  surveyors  of  the  most   1862. 
practical  sort. 

From  1800  to  1862,  inclusive,  the  State's 
interior  poimlation  appjirently  decreased.  As 
it  was  owing  principally  to  the  rush  to  Wash- 
ington Territory,  Idaho,  and  Washoe,  it  did  not 
seem  like  so  utter  a  loss  as  when,  in  1858  and 
1859,  British  Columbia  was  absorbino;  its  en- 
terprise  and  industiy.  This  drifting  into  other 
Territories  belon2:in2:  to  tlie  Union  could  be 
borne  the  better,  since  it  was  only  sowing,  be- 
yond the  border,  harvests  that  California  and 
the  Union  would  jointly  reap.  But  it  was 
rough  at  first  on  California.  The  middle  tier 
of  counties  suffered  most.  Some  of  their  mining 
towns  lost  half  their  population.  But  the  com- 
pensation was  surprisingly  quick  in  coming. 
Splendid  roads  over  the  mountains  were  con- 
structed, to  meet  the  demands  of  the  new  set- 
tlements beyond  the  eastern  border.  A  new 
and  profitable  market  was  opened  for  all  that 
the  orchardists  and  gardeners  and  tanners  in 
the  foot-hills  could  raise,  and  ao-riculture  com- 
peted  with  mining  as  a  profitable  employment 
in  what  had  been  deemed  exclusively  mining 
counties.  Factors  appeared  at  the  door  of 
every  man  who  had  any  thing  in  the  shape  of 
proJuce  or  grain  to  sell,  with  tempting  prices 

4U 


626  THE   HISTOEY    OF   CALTEOEKTA. 

CHAP,  in  band.     It  stimulated   the  permanent  settle- 

XLIL  •  • 

ment  of  the  rich  little  valleys,  and  men,  who 
1862.  had  drifted  ever  since  their  arrival,  sent  for 
their  families  and  improved  homesteads.  Wa- 
shoe did  for  Californians  what  Congress  should 
have  done  long  ago ;  it  gave  the  miner  an  in- 
terest in  the  land.  Then  founderies  started  up 
in  all  the  cities  to  supply  a  clamorous  demand 
for  machinery ;  and  when  Washoe  abated  her 
demand,  the  stock  of  machinery  that  could  be 
so  easily  turned  out  of  these  founderies  stimu- 
lated prospecting  for  other  fields  within  our 
borders  to  employ  it. 

The  social  compensations  for  those  rushes,  that 
hooked  so  frightful  as  they  approached,  were 
still  more  remarkable.  With  each  rush  went 
the  worst  class  first.  The  gambling  and  drink- 
ing saloons  and  houses  of  ill-fame  were  the 
first  to  close  up.  They  who  remained  gave 
more  attention  to  their  homes,  to  the  education 
of  their  growing  families,  to  their  moral  train- 
ing. Cottages  took  on  paint,  flowers  crept 
more  boldly  up  to  the  windows,  vines  trailed 
their  glories  to  the  sun  ;  and  the  cottage  owners 
were  not  ashamed  of  these  evidences  of  a  taste 
that  was  deemed  effeminate  by  the  departed 
roysterers.  School-houses  were  open  longer  in 
the  year ;  churches  lost  their  musty,  unven- 
tilated  air. 

It  is  growing  all  the  while  clearer  that  these 


COMPENSATION    FOTI    APPARENT   MISFORTUNES.       627 

rushes  cause  far  more  apparent  than  real  loss  chap. 
to  the  community.  The  class  that  runs,  quick  "^^^  ' 
as  the  mercury  in  the  tilted  level,  at  the  first  1662. 
report  of  great  diggings  in  the  distance,  is  not 
the  most  desirable  class,  though  it  is  the  noisi- 
est. Streets  that  were  ringiug  with  the  songs 
of  a  score  or  two  of  riotous  fellows,  perambula- 
ting them  through  the  early  night,  and  brilliant 
with  the  light  of  open  gambling  and  drinking 
saloons,  ai'e  still  and  dark  now,  and  the  hasty 
observer  might  conclude  that  the  life  of  the 
town  had  gone.  It  is  only  its  wild,  unprofit- 
able life  that  has  vanished.  A  thousand  well- 
to-do,  steady  people,  in  their  homes,  are  not  as 
noisy  as  the  score  of  spenthrifts ;  a  new  mining 
camp  of  five  hundred  makes  more  noise  at  night 
than  a  New  En2:land  villao;e  of  five  thousand 
people.  But  send  a  popular  lecturer,  or  a  good 
stump  speaker,  into  these  dull  towns,  and  he 
Avill  see  the  population  swarm  out  to  meet  and 
cheer  him.  Unquestionably  there  are  more 
elements  of  permanent  prosperity  in  the  State 
to-day  than  ever  before;  and  though  it  is  not 
true  of  particular  localities,  of  the  State  as  a 
whole,  it  is  true  that  the  growth  has  been  steady 
and  healthful. 


628  THE   IIISTOEY    OF    CALITOENIA. 


\8U. 


CHAPTER    XLIII. 

THE  PEOPLE  AXD    THE  PROSPECTS. 

CHAP.  The  sixteen  years  of  its  occupation  have  not 
•^^"-  changed  the  early  impression  of  the  salubrity 
of  the  climate  of  California.  In  the  low  dis- 
tricts, subject  to  overflow  from  the  rivers,  and 
in  the  parts  where  the  miners  constantly  turn 
new  soil  to  the  sun,  miasmatic  diseases  prevail. 
Kheumatism  naturally  waits  upon  the  miner 
who  exposes  himself  in  ditches,  or  lies  drilliug 
and  picking  all  day  or  night  in  a  damp  tunnel ; 
for,  deep  in  a  tunnel,  night  and  day  are  indis- 
tinguishable. 

The  strong  winds  of  the  coast  are  severe  for 
persons  with  sensitive  thi'oat  or  lungs.  In  San 
Francisco,  throughout  the  year,  the  air  is  bra- 
cing, and  tempting  to  work.  Prol^ably  most 
of  the  ailments  of  the  males  in  that  city  are  due 
to  the  inspiriting  an- — in  ^vinte^  sufficiently 
cool  to  make  gentle  exercise  agi'eeable,  yet 
scarcely  cold  enough  to  require  a  fire,  except  as 
a  cheerful  addition  to  the  picture  of  an  evening 
at  home  ;  in  summer  ^^erene  and  delicious  in  the 
morning,  a  little  chilly  and  invigorating  with 


THE   CLIMATE.  629 

the  westerly  afternoon  winds,  wliicli  would  be  cha.p. 
always  ^-rateful  but  for  the  dust  and  sand  witli 
wliicli  they  are  laden — a  nuisance  that  wdll  dis-  isg4. 
appear  as  the  streets  come  to  be  more  generally 
planked  down  or  paved,  and  new^  blocks  of 
buildings  furnish  a  lee.  This  very  bi'acing, 
always  stimulating  condition  of  the  air,  tempts 
to  overwork,  and  induces  the  diseases  that 
grow  out  of  constant,  unremitting  excite- 
ment. 

It  will  be  remedied  in  part  by  fashion,  which 
w^ill  establish  certain  times  of  the  year  as  the 
proper  ones  to  visit  the  coast  or  retire  to  the 
interior,  to  fly  to  watering-places,  to  loiter 
about  the  medicinal  springs,  to  see  the  natural 
curiosities  of  the  country,  Yosemite  Valley,  the 
Big  Ti'ee  groves  of  Mariposa  and  Calaveras,  the 
Geysers,  or  to  make  excursions  to  the  grape 
counties  in  the  time  of  the  vintage.  At  pres- 
ent, fashion  only  dictates,  when  one  is  over- 
worked, a  trip  to  the  Sandwich  Islands,  or 
overland  or  by  steamer  to  the  East,  or  to 
Europe. 

Society  has  wondrously  improved  since  the 
Vigilance  era.  Most  Californians  were  enter- 
prising, or  they  would  not  have  migrated  so 
long  a  distance;  intelligent,  or  they  would  have 
lacked  the  enterprise  their  very  presence  proves. 
They  are  great  readers,  because  the  majority 
received  at  least  a  common-school  education  at 


630  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFOIINIA. 

OP.AP.  home,  and  their  love  of  home,  and  their  isola- 
'^'"'^  tion,  make  reading  a  necessity  to  obtain  the 
18G4.  news  and  pass  their  leisure  pleasantly.  The 
newspaper  is  in  every  man's  house,  and  it  is 
doubtful  if  anywhere  the  newspaper  is  more 
admirably  conducted  to  meet  the  wants  of  a 
people  that  believe  in  it.  No  American  papei's 
pay  more  for  the  earliest  news  than  the  leading 
journals  of  San  Francisco  and  Sacramento ;  none 
pay  more  attention  to  local  news  and  interests ; 
few,  if  any,  are  more  carefully  conducted  to 
prevent  misleading  those  who  leave  their  paper 
to  do  their  thinking  for  them.  Almost  every 
sect  and  party  has  a  representative  and  advo- 
cate, if  not  an  organ ;  and  the  religious  press, 
though  not  at  all  j^rofitable  as  a  business  spec- 
ulation, is  influential. 

The  common  schools  are  at  last  upon  such  a 
basis  that  in  the  settled  parts  of  the  State  any 
child  may  obtain  as  fair  a  j^rimary  education  as 
in  an  Eastern  public  school ;  of  course  there  are 
regions  sparsely  populated,  where  the  school- 
houses  are  long  distances  apart,  and  the  schools 
kept  1  )ut  a  small  portion  of  the  year.  Private 
and  select  schools  of  superior  excellence  abound 
in  the  cities  and  their  vicinity,  and  are  exten- 
sively patronized,  because  parents  are  suspicious 
that  their  children  learn  too  fast  and  too  much 
in  the  public  schools.  Several  colleges  and 
professional  schools  have  been  planted.     Such 


EDUCATIONAL    CONDITION.  631 

institutions   are  of  slow  growth,  but  they  are  chap. 

r         .  .        XLiii 

rooting  firmly  and  springing  with  fine  promise.  __^_^ 

As  the  people  of  the  American  colonies  long  i»64. 
preferi'ed  to  send  their  children  to  Europe  to 
be  educated,  so  hitherto  the  custom  has  pre- 
vailed in  California  of  sending  the  boys  to  the 
colleges  and  the  girls  to  the  seminaries  of  the 
East.  The  custom  will  cease  as  the  parents  are 
weaned  from  their  old  homes,  for  motives  of 
economy  and  the  natural  desire  to  keep  one's 
family  together  conspire  to  give  home  schools 
the  preference  over  even  better  ones  abroad. 

The  census  of  1860  was  so  shabbily  taken, 
that  it  almost  demands  an  apology  to  quote  it ; 
yet,  in  its  rude  approximation  to  truth,  it  ex- 
hibits some  curious  facts.  According  to  its 
returns,  only  a  little  more  than  one-fourth  of  the 
white  inhabitants  were  females.  This  dispro- 
portion of  the  sexes,  greatest  in  the  mining  dis- 
tricts and  least  in  the  chief  cities,  accounts  for 
the  large  though  decreasing  number  of  divorces, 
perhaps  for  some  of  the  insanity  and  suicides 
that  startle  the  community.  Add  to  this  that 
the  mildness  of  the  climate  makes  the  people, 
to  a  large  extent,  an  out-door  people,  permits 
them  to  hold  exchange  on  the  side-walk,  tempts 
them  to  pleasure  excursions  into  the  country  the 
year  round,  and  requires  no  firesides  in  their 
homes,  and  there  are  suggested  some  of  the 
chief  social  dansjers  of  the  State. 


632  THi:    HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

(MiAP.  lu  San  Francisco  the  Sabbatli  is  scarcely  less 
generally  observed  than  in  the  Eastern  cities. 

I8(i4.  The  most  notable  difference  is,  that  the  theatres 
are  open  on  the  Sabbath  as  on  other  evenings, 
though  princi23ally  attended  by  French,  Ger- 
man, and  Spanish  residents.  In  the  country, 
though  church  spires  and  towers  give  the 
Christian  aspect  to  all  thriving  interior  towns, 
the  proportion  of  attendants  is  exceedingly 
small,  and  it  is  easy  to  find  men  brought  uj) 
under  church  influences  who  have  not  heard 
a  sermon  in  a  year,  or  only  as  among  the  curi- 
osities of  the  metropolis  on  visiting  it. 

Away  from  the  conserving  influence  of  woman 
and  home,  living  lives  of  hazard  and  excitement, 
:there  was  danger  that  the  masses  would  acquire 
habits  of  intemj)erance  in  drinking.  The  fear 
was  not  unfounded,  nor  the  result  other  than 
"was  feared.  The  bracing  climate  sustained  the 
hard  drinker,  and  deluded  him  Avith  the  hope 
of  longevity  in  spite  of  his  excesses,  until  sud- 
den death  terminated  his  career.  The  influence 
of  exemplary  business  partnerships,  of  Sal)batli- 
school,  of  church,  of  home,  were  potent  within 
their  circle,  but  the  mass  was  outside  their 
circle.  A  reform  which  proved  widely  influen- 
tial was  inaugurated  January  1st,  1S59.  A 
company  of  firemen  ("Howard,  No.  3"),  sitting 
in  their  engine-house  late  at  night,  celebrating 
New  Year  after  the  custom  of  the  country,  fell 


MORAL    ASPECTS.  633 

to  musing'  over  tlieir  prospects,  and  were  voucli-  chap. 
safed  a  vision  of  their  proVjable  fate.  At  last 
they  agreed  solemnly  to  discontinue  the  use  of  isg4. 
intoxicating  liquor — to  "dash  away  the  cup." 
They  organized  a  society  of  Dashaways,  with 
Frank  E.  R.  Whitney,  chief  engineer  of  the  fire 
department  of  San  Francisco,  as  their  president, 
pledging  themselves  to  drink  nothing  intoxi- 
cating for  five  and  a  half  months.  They  kept 
their  promise,  and,  before  reaching  the  limit  of 
their  self  imposed  pledge,  renewed  it  for  all 
time.  They  rented  a  hall,  started  a  library, 
opened  an  intelligence  oflice,  had  meetings  every 
Sabbath,  at  which  clergymen  and  others  were 
invited  to  address  them,  experience  meetings  in 
the  afternoon,  business  and  debating  meetings 
in  the  evenings,  went  out  seeking  among  their 
acquaintance  for  new  men  to  be  pledged,  played 
the  Good  Samaritan  to  all  drunkards,  estab- 
lished branch  Dashaway  associations  in  other 
cities,  and  were  felt  for  good  wherever  they 
went.  Out  of  their  efforts  grew  up  the  Asylum 
for  Inebriates,  which  has  a  fine  permanent 
building.  They  erected  a  hall  of  their  own, 
^vhere  all  strangers  are  welcome.  Many  who 
have  been  pledged  have  fallen  away  and  been 
lost;  but  scores  and  hundreds  it  has  saved. 
Many  have  doubted  if  the  experiment  could 
finally  and  lastingly  succeed,  querying  whether 
the  reformation  it  achieves  is  radical  enouach  to 


634  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  affect  the  fruit  of  a  lifetime.     Thus  far  it  has 

^_^_,  succeeded  beyond  all  expectation ;  it  has  done 

1864.   immense  good  at    a  time  when  it   was  most 

needed,  and  to  a  class  not  accessible  to  other 

means  of  reform. 

One  question  connected  with  this  subject  still 
perplexes  tlie  people.  The  State  is  to  become 
a  great  wine-making  country.  But  in  wine- 
growing States  the  thin  wines  supplant  tea  and 
coffee  as  table  drinks.  How  will  this  affect 
California  society  ?  The  grapes  of  the  land  are 
rich  in  sugar  and  excessive  in  the  production 
of  alcohol.  Will  the  common  use  of  wine  made 
from  them  lead  to  abstinence  from  the  poisonous 
adulterations  of  imported  liquors?  or  will  it 
but  stimulate  the  appetite  to  a  dem'ind  for  still 
fiercer  drinks?  Opinion  is  divided  on  the  ques- 
tion, and  there  is  too  little  experience  yet  to 
guide  to  a  correct  conclusion. 

There  is  no  j^oor-house  in  California,  and  one 
reason  is  because  there  are  not  many  poor. 
The  generation  that  settled  the  country  is  still 
young  and  able-bodied.  The  high  cost  of  re- 
moval to  the  State  prohibits  poverty  from  in- 
vading it  in  force,  so  that  its  poor  are  its  own. 
The  people  directly  i-elieve  utter  destitution 
when  they  hear  of  it,  and,  because  at  San  Fran- 
cisco there  are  hospitals,  asylums,  and  many 
societies  organized  to  relieve  suffering,  ease 
poverty  "  over  the  centre,"  and  assist  the  ailing. 


CITABITIES    AIN^D    BENEVOLENCE.  635 

a  prevalent  method  of  relief  in  the  country  is  chap. 

•  •  •  X^T  TTT 

to  help  the  afflicted  down  to  the  city ;  if  there  _^ 
they  have  no  friends,  and  if  to  their  other  griefs    i864. 
they  add  home-sickness,  San  Franciscans  cheer- 
fully help  them  back  to  their  Eastern  homes. 

The  Indians  are  estimated  to  number,  instead 
of  the  hundred  thousand  of  the  time  of  admis- 
sion, from  ten  thousand  to  fifteen  thousand; 
and  diseases  acquired  by  theii'  contact  with  the 
whites,  whiskey,  to  which  they  are  devotedly 
attached,  and  frequent  skirmishes  with  the 
whites,  are  rapidly  reducing  that  number.  The 
opportunity  to  benefit  them,  the  question  what 
to  do  with  them,  will  soon  pass.  They  only 
haunt  the  outskirts,  and  are  little  real  trouble 
even  now. 

Governor  Weller  estimated  the  expenditures 
of  the  State  and  General  Government,  in  tak- 
ing care  of  and  fighting  Indians,  from  the  ad- 
mission of  the  State  to  1859,  at  three  million 
dollars.  The  Government,  observing  how  the 
old  missionaries  made  the  Indians  support 
themselves  and  lay  up  fat  stores  for  the  Fathers, 
devised,  in  1853,  the  Reservation  system,  but 
committed  the  radical  blunder  of  sendinsc  out 
professional  politicians  as  Indian  Agents  rather 
than  men  with  some  tolerable  idea  of  control- 
ling Indians  by  moral  means,  of  winning  their 
respect  and  benefiting  them.  The  result  was  a 
digraceful  failure.     An   appropi  iriion  of  two 


Q'dQ  THE   HISTORY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP,  hundred  and  fifty  tliousimd  dollars  annually, 
^  '  for  six  or  seven  years,  built  ample  granaries  for 
1804,  the  prospective  croj^s,  furnished  pleasant  head- 
quarters for  the  superintendents  and  employes, 
and  helped  to  carry  local  elections  as  the  Ad- 
ministration at  Washington  wished  them  car- 
ried, but  gave  the  Indians  very  little  employ- 
ment or  clothing  or  provisions. 

The  money  ^vas  wasted.  The  fertile  nooks 
composing  the  Reservations  were  coveted  by 
the  encroaching  whites,  and  pretexts  for  "  clear- 
ing out"  the  Indians  were  easy.  In  1858—9, 
at  Nova  Cult,  one  hundred  and  fifty  Indians, 
including  women  and  children,  were  slaugh- 
tered— the  settlers  said  they  killed  their  cattle, 
but  neither  settlers  nor  their  cattle  had  any 
business  in  the  valley.  The  settlers  said  the 
Government  did  nothino-  for  its  wards  at  Kino-'s 
Kiver,  so  they  drove  them  over  to  Fresno.  At 
a  station  near  Mendocino  several  Indians  were 
murdered.  About  Humboldt  Bay  and  Pitt 
River  there  was  a  series  of  massacres ;  the  blood 
curdles  at  the  recital  of  the  story  by  those  who 
apologize  for  the  murderers.  The  massacres 
were  generally  called  "wars;"  sometimes  the 
State  took  a  hand,  oftener  the  Government 
troops  came  to  the  rescue,  and,  more  by  over- 
awing whites  than  by  shooting  Indians,  re-es- 
tablished peace. 

Since  18(30  the  annual  appropriation  has  been 


THE  CHINESE  PUZZLE.  637 

about  fifty  tliousand  dollars.  The  Indians  per-  chap. 
liaps  get  as  much  as  when  the  sum  was  five  >_^_i 
times  greater.  Probably  all  that  can  be  done  1864. 
for  the  miserable  remnant,  is  to  give  them 
agents  who  will  treat  them  with  kindness  and 
deal  witli  the  Government  honestly.  Men  fit 
for  the  post  can  secure  their  confidence  and 
rule  them  by  kindness,  can  save  their  squaws 
from  being  stolen,  and  their  children  from  be- 
ing kidnapped.  Do  that,  and  they  are  as  harm- 
less as  cattle,  as  inoffensive  as  sheep.  If  the 
General  Government  will  only  furnish  them 
supplies  enough  to  pass  them  over  seasons  of 
drought,  so  that  the  alternative  shall  not  be 
famine  or  cattle-stealing,  and  compel  the  whites 
to  let  them  alone,  the  Indian  question  would 
be  settled.  They  are  the  wards  of  the  Gov- 
ernment at  Washino-ton.  It,  more  than  the 
State,  is  to  blame  for  their  maltreatment  and 
abuse.  If  their  fate  reflects  shame  U23on  the 
settlers,  so  does  the  fate  of  all  their  race  upon 
the  settlers  of  the  continent — a  suofSfestiou  that 
is  not  made  in  a  spirit  of  apology,  but  that  any 
may  consider  well  who  meditate  tlii^owing  the 
first  stone. 

The  Chinese  puzzle  is  not  solved  yet.  The 
number  of  Chinese  in  the  State  is  estimated  at 
from  fifty  to  sixty  thousand,  and  all  belong  to 
one  or  other  of  the  fur  companies  that  have 
their  head-quarters  at  San  Francisco. 


638  THE   HISTORY   OF    CAJ.IFORNIA. 

^fj^-  In  1859  the  miners  in  one  of  the  northern 
w-^-w  counties  attempted  to  eject  the  Chinese  from 
1864.  the  mines.  The  local  authorities  interfered  to 
prevent  the  outrage,  and  Governor  Weller,  to 
his  credit,  aided  them  against  the  mob.  The 
Legislature,  impelled  by  a  clamor  about  the 
competition  of  coolie  with  white  labor,  indulged 
in  a  series  of  spiteful  legislation  to  the  annoy- 
ance of  the  Chinese.  In  1857  it  levied  a  tax 
on  Chinese  immigrants,  but  the  Supreme  Court 
annulled  it.  In  1859  it  taxed  Chinese  fisher- 
men four  dollars  a  month,  and  the  chief  effect 
was  to  cause  the  whites  to  pay  John  a  little 
more  than  they  would  have  done  for  every 
pound  of  fish  they  bought.  In  1862  it  passed 
an  act  with  the  direct  purpose  of  discouraging 
immigration,  but  the  Supreme  Court  declared 
it  unconstitutional  and  void.  The  ci2:ar-raakers 
raised  a  howl  against  the  Chinese  in  1862,  and 
an  attempt  was  made  to  drive  them  out  of  the 
gardens  about  San  Francisco.  But  because 
they  were  neat  and  nimble-fingered  and  worked 
cheaply,  they  outliv^ed  the  persecution;  and 
now  they  make  the  cigars,  pick  the  berries  for 
market,  do  light  mechanical  work  in  the  wool- 
len and  other  factories,  and  are  appreciated  as 
quiet,  profitable  help.  The  State  over,  they  are 
creatine;  values  out  of  nothincf,  of  which  Amer- 
icans   receive    the    lion's   share.      As   society 


THE   CHINESE    PUZZLE.  60 9 

grows  stable  tliey  are  sure  to  get  l:>etter  treat-  chap. 
ment  than  hitherto.  w.^ 

If  the  heathen  moralist  could  say  "  whatever  1864. 
is  human  pertains  to  me,"  Christians  certainly 
will  not  oppress  these  pioneers,  though  of  a 
heathen  race,  whose  presence  is  a  pei'petual 
challenge  to  the  expansive  missionary  spirit  to 
do  what  it  can  for  their  Christianization.  If, 
when  they  meet  us  half-way,  our  Christianity 
cannot  impress  them,  what  prospect  that  their 
teeming  land  can  be  affected  by  any  thing  that 
our  missionaries  can  do  ?• 

Kindness  tells  upon  them  as  upon  other 
folks.  A  few  gather  every  Sabbath  in  San 
Francisco  to  the  Mission  Church,  which,  under 
the  Rev.  Mr.  Speer,  of  the  Presbyterian  Board, 
or  the  Kev.  Mr.  Loomis,  his  successor,  has  been 
maintained  since  1852.  A  few  stray  into  the 
Sabbath  schools  and  are  welcome,  while  a  con- 
siderable number  attend  the  evening  school  es- 
tablished by  the  City  Board  of  Education  for 
their  benefit,  and  where  competent  teachers  in- 
struct them  in  English. 

There  are  a  few  other  elements  composing 
the  population  that  do  not  easily  mix  with 
Europeans,  but  they  are  feeble  in  numbers  and 
threaten  no  trouble.  Cosmopolitan  beyond 
all  other  lands,  there  is  every  reason  to  believe 
that  after  the  first  generation  the  people  will 
seem  homo2:eneous. 


G40  THE   HISTOEY    OF    CALIFORNIA. 

CHAP.  California  has  conquered  ocean  and  desert, 
^_^  distance  and  isolation.  Regular  lines  of  steam- 
1864.  ers  were  early  established  to  convey  mails  and 
passengers  from  New  York  to  San  Francisco. 
At  first  these  steamers  ran  monthly  ;  then  every 
fortnight,  and  then,  for  several  years,  three 
times  a  month.  The  favorite  line  is  by  Pana- 
ma, especially  since  the  railroad  over  that  nar- 
row isthmus  is  finished  from  ocean  to  ocean. 
The  fare  is  always  high,  seldom,  except  when 
sharp  competition  reduces  it,  falling  below  two 
hundred  and  thirty  d'ollars  for  the  best,  and 
eighty  dollars  for  the  meanest  accommodations. 
Other  routes  occasionally  compete  for  a  share 
of  the  travel. 

In  the  early  days  there  was  much  suflfering 
on  the  journey,  whatever  the  route.,  The  deten- 
tion and  hardships  of  the  isthmus-crossing  pre- 
disposed to  cholera,  and  the  steerage  passengers 
especially  \vere  swept  off  with  frightful  mor- 
tality. Now,  however,  the  trip  is  generally 
made  in  little  over  twenty-one  days,  and  if  the 
passenger  affords  himself  the  comforts  that 
money  and  experience  can  command,  he  may 
with  ordinary  ^veather  make  his  first  voyage  a 
pleasure  excursion,  though,  after  that,  at  the 
best  it  will  prove  tedious  and  tiresome. 

The  terrors  of  the  overland  route,  too,  have 
been  greatly  diminished.  In  October,  1858,  by 
act  of  Congress,  4X  daily    overland   mail   was 


COMMUISTICATIONS    WITH   THE    EAST.  641 

started,  and  the  contractors  put  upon  the  line  chap. 
stages  which  whisk  the  passenger,  paying  about 
the  same  as  first-class  steamer  fare,  from  Atchi-    i864. 
son  to  Placerville,  in  nineteen  days. 

In  the  spring  of  1860  the  pony  mail  was 
fstarted.  Light,  well-armed  riders,  carrying 
nothing  but  letters,  dashed  from  station  to 
station,  on  small,  tough,  fleet-footed,  horses, 
making  the  trip  across  the  continent  in  nine 
days.  It  was  a  stirring  thing  to  meet  the  pony 
in  the  mountains.  By  the  winding  of  his  horn 
the  rider  announced  his  coming,  when  team- 
ster, emigrant,  and  even  aristocratic  stage- 
driver  pulled  his  team  closer  to  the  bank  and 
let  the  pony  pass.  With  a  yell,  j^erhaps,  but 
no  stop  to  parley,  the  rider  flashed  by  on  his 
galloping  mustang,  and  the  next  winding  of  his 
horn  showed  him  far  off,  already  clambering  the 
hill  or  plunging  into  the  distant  canon. 

But  the  pony  was  stabled  forever  on  the  com- 
pletion of  the  telegraph  across  the  continent. 
This  constant  marvel  was  finished  early  in  1861, 
and  one  of  the  first  messai^es  that  travelled  the 
mysterious  wire  announced  the  death  of  Colo- 
nel Baker  at  Ball's  Bluff.  With  occasional  in- 
terruptions, chiefly  from  atmospheric  causes  east 
of  Omaha,  the  telegraph  has  kept  the  people  of 
California  posted  during  the  war  with  the  news 
of  the  day  almost  as  promptly  as  were  they  of 
the  Eastern  cities.     The  same  dispatches  that 

41 


642  THE   HISTORY   OF   CALTFORyiA. 

CHAP,  went  from  Washington  over  niglit  to  New  York 

■   and  Boston  ^ve^e  read  next  morning   in  San 

1864.  Francisco.  The  difference  in  longitude  operated 
to  the  advantage  of  the  West,  and  atoned  for 
the  loss  of  time  in  repeating  the  message  at 
Chicago,  Salt  Lake,  or  elsewhere. 

There  still  remains  to  be  built  that  great 
bond  of  union,  the  Pacific  Kailroad.  It  is, 
begun,  however,  and  the  least  sanguine  expect 
it  to  be  completed  so  that  one  may  ride  by  rail 
from  the  ports  of  the  Atlantic  to  the  great 
metropolis  of  the  Pacific  within  the  next  dozen 
years.  Give  us  this,  and  the  glory  of  the  situ- 
ation of  California  will  be  as  apparent  at  the 
East  as  at  the  West.  There  will  be  a  contin- 
ous  line  of  settlements  from  the  Missouri  to  the 
Sacramento,  and  both  East  and  West  must 
speedily  reap  benefits  tenfold  the  cost  of  the 
gigantic  undertaking. 

Events  in  California  have  occurred  so  rapid- 
ly, the  country  so  lately  an  unknown  land  has 
so  quickly  overtaken  the  civilization  of  the 
Eastern  States,  that  the  incidents  of  sixteen 
years  ago  seem  as  truly  antique  as  if  a  century 
intervened  between  them  and  the  present.  The 
actors  in  the  most  stirring  scenes  of  the  coast 
still  live.  It  is  a  delicate  task  to  write  of  them 
with  the  same  impartiality  as  if  they  ^vere  dead. 
It  is  a^^■kward  to  have  the  men  who  have  fi2:ured 


CA-LirORNTA.    A    MOTHER    OF   TERRITORIES.  643 

in  history  usiirpiug  the  place  of  posterity  and  chap. 
criticising  tlie  historian's  labors.  l-^^-w 

But  though  the  State  has  passed  through  so  1864. 
much,  produced  so  largely,  achieved  so  nobly, 
it  is  clearly,  as  yet,  on  the  threshold  of  its  great 
career.  With  all  its  drawbacks,  which  are  but 
temporary,  so  charming  is  its  climate,  so  rich 
its  resources,  and  so  accessible  are  they  to  all 
the  industrious  and  energetic,  that  the  intelli- 
gent immigrant  now,  as  he  did  in  the  past,  and 
doubtless  will  in  the  future  for  many  a  year, 
feels  the  force  of  the  State's  motto,  and  for  him- 
self exclaims.  Eureka. 

Steadily  the  State  grows  in  material  wealth ; 
rapidly  it  improves  in  its  social  aspect  as  a 
home  for  a  free,  intelligent  people.  Even  if  the 
next  census  should  not  show  as  great  a  growth 
in  population  dui'ing  the  current  decennial  pe- 
riod as  was  anticipated  a  few  years  ago,  it  must 
be  remembered  how  that  may  happen  without 
permanent  injury  to  the  State. 

California  is,  like  the  older  Eastern  States,  a 
busy  hive,  whence  new  swarms  go  off  annually, 
yet  are  not  lost  to  her.  From  her  borders  have 
gone  out  the  men  who  are  developing  the  re- 
sources of  a  region  four  times  as  great  as  the 
oi'iginal  thirteen  States.  The  Union  is  a  perpet- 
ual gainer,  though  California  may  appear  to  be 
checked  by  this  wonderfully  elastic  expansion. 
Nevada,  Idaho,  Western  Utah,   Arizona,   and 


6^4  THE    HISTOEY    OF    CALIFOENIA. 

tlie  four  northern  States  of  Mexico  owe  their 
population  chiefly  to  California.  They  are  fast 
18G4.  repaying  her  for  the  outlay  on  them  in  the 
trade  and  commerce  that  they  have  created  for 
her  principal  port,  in  the  market  they  make  for 
her  agi'icultural  products,  in  their  demand  for  the 
work  of  her  factories  and  founderies,  and  the 
gold,  silver,  copper,  and  other  mineral  products 
that  go  through  San  Francisco  into  the  markets 
of  the  world.  Looking  at  California  in  connec- 
tion with  the  colonies  that  have  gone  from  her, 
and  will  ever  be  tributary  to  her,  there  is  not 
a  more  marvellous  State  growth  recorded  in  all 
the  pages  of  history. 


IISTDEX 


INDEX. 


Alakcon  finds  mouth  of  the  Colorado,  11. 

Abaeoni's  grand  scheme  for  California,  57. 

Alvakado's  insurrection  successful,  142. 

Alcaldes  of  San  Francisco,  216. 

Alta  Califoenia,  292. 

Adams  &  Co.,  405. 

American  Flag  hoisted  at  Monterey,  180. 

San  Francisco,  181. 
Aeea  of  the  State,  275. 
Ageicttltuee,  353,  Gil. 
Anian,  Straits  of,  16,  22. 
Aboeigines  of  California,  88. 

B. 
Beannan,  Samuel,  214. 
Baetlett,  Washington  A.,  216. 
Beace's  crime  and  punishment,  488. 
Baker's  eulogy  on  Broderick,  564. 
Beancifoete  established,  105. 
Baijished  persons,  list  of,  509. 
Balboa's  discovery  of  the  South  Sea,  4. 
Beae  Flag,  173. 
Bennett  elected  Governor,  282. 
Benton,  Colonel,  writes  to  California,  254. 
Biglee,  Governor,  and  the  Chinese,  370. 
Beitish  plots  to  get  California,  179. 
Beown,  Captain  John,  118. 
Boscana's  account  of  the  Aborigines,  90. 
Beodeeick,  D.  C,  305,  417. 

elected  Senator,  546. 


648  nsDEx. 

Beodeeick  and  Gwin,  549. 

on  the  stump,  555. 

death  of,  5G3. 
BotJiTDART  question  vetoed,  275. 
Bulkhead  bill  vetoed,  574. 
Bulletin,  Evening,  408. 


c. 

Cattle  rodeos,  157. 
Casey,  James  P.,  432. 

and  Cora  hung,  446. 
Cabeillo  goes  up  the  North  American  cuast,  12 
California,  meaning  of  the  word,  13. 

under  Mexican  rule,  121. 

independence  of,  152. 

in  1849-50,  331. 

bill  for  admission  passes  Senate,  319. 

admitted  to  the  Union,  321. 

a  mother  of  Territories,  343. 

Star,  215. 
Calm  half  century.  111. 
Capitol  on  wheels,  891. 
Charities  and  benevolence,  635. 
Calhoun's  efforts  for  Slavery,  250,  313. 
Clay's  Compromise  Measures,  309,  317,  321. 
Climate  of  California,  629. 
Chinese,  369. 

puzzle,  637. 
Cities,  incorporation  of,  289. 
CoRTEz's  exploration  on  Mexican  coast,  7. 
Commeece  while  under  Mexico,  158. 
Congress  on  California,  249. 
Convention,  expenses  of,  277. 
Cokseevative  influences,  343. 
Commerce,  355. 

Compensation  for  misfortunes,  625. 
Constitutional  Convention,  262. 
Constitution  adopted,  282. 

provisions  of,  277. 


INDEX.  649 

Cook,  Captain,  beware,  116. 
Colonial  Spanish  scheme,  126. 
Common  law  adopted,  287. 
Columbus's  theory  of  the  Soutli  Sea,  3. 
Columbia,  warning  against  ship,  117. 
County  names,  299. 
CuEKENCY  in  1849,  328. 

questions,  595. 
Ohueoh,  first  Protestant,  294. 

D. 

Dashaways,  633. 

Deake  on  coast  of  California,  22. 

probably  in  San  Francisco  Bay,  23. 
Deake's  report  of  climate  and  gold  of  California,  21,  26. 
Deagons  that  defended  the  coast,  2. 
Deseeet's  delegates  to  California,  287. 
Dkess  of  natives,  158. 
Demooeat,  first  meeting,  295. 
Dwinelle^'s  Colonial  History,  107. 

Difficulty  between  Kearny,  Fremont,  and  Stockton,  207. 
Domestic  habits  of  natives,  156. 
Downey,  Governor,  573. 

Douglas's  efforts  for  the  admission  of  Califoiuia,  254. 
Deoughts,  G21. 
Duelling  in  California,  569. 

E. 

Eakthquakes,  116. 
Echeandeia,  Governor,  130- 
Emigeants,  suffering  of,  217- 

rush  of,  237. 
Exiles  attempt  to  return  to  San  Francisco,  486. 
Expoets  of  treasure,  601. 
Exports  and  imports,  613. 
Educational  condition,  631. 

F. 

Franciscans  tako  Jesuit  ifissions  of  Lower  California,  68. 
occupy  Upper  California,  72. 


650  INDEX. 

Fkaudulent  land  claims,  539. 

FiiEMONT  and  Castro  confront  each  other,  162. 

threatened  by  Castro,  163. 

overtaken  by  Lieutenant  Gillespie,  166. 

turns  back  to  revolutionize  the  Government,  1 67. 

battalion,  173,  201. 

pursues  Castro,  174. 

and  Sloat,  182. 

pardons  Jesus  Pico,  203. 

as  Governor  of  California,  208. 

disobeys  orders,  211. 

is  disgraced,  212. 

indignation  at,  223. 
FixAnciAL  storm,  402. 
Finances  of  the  State,  410. 
Financial  breakers,  525. 
Fires  in  San  Francisco,  333. 
Field,  Californians  on  the,  597. 

FiLLIBUSTEEISM,  393. 

Floods,  617. 
Figueeoa,  134. 

his  labors  and  death,  139. 
Floees's  revolt,  191. 
Fugitive  Slave  Act,  550. 

a. 

GitAiiAM,  Isaac,  142. 

arrested,  146. 
Grass  Valley,  389. 

Galvez's  expeditions  to  Upper  California,  72. 
Gambling,  337. 

Green,  A.  A.,  obtains  Pueblo  papers,  490. 
Greeley,  Horace,  at  San  Francisco,  558. 
Gwix,  Dr.,  417. 

on  the  stump,  557. 
Governors  of  California  under  Spain,  123. 

Mexico,  151. 
Gold,  discovery  of,  226. 
how  found,  231. 
Dana's  report,  232. 


INDEX.  ^  G51 

Gold,  Sutter  and  Marshall  on,  232. 

Isaac  Humphrey  on,  233. 

Baptiste  on,  234. 
Gulf  of  California  explored  by  Ugarte,  61. 

IL 

Habeas  Corpus,  how  respected  by  Vigilance  Committee,  496. 

Hanging,  287. 

Haebors,  why  difficult  to  find  on  the  Pacific,  40. 

Hetherington's  crime  and  punishnient,  487. 

Hijar's  colony,  136. 

Hounds,  the,  293. 

Houses  in  1849-50,  331. 

I. 

Interest,  rate  of,  286. 

Ide's  Proclamation  of  Independence,  171. 

Indlan  customs,  91. 

wars,  359. 

reservations,  367. 
Indians,  636. 

J. 

Jealousy  of  foreigners,  116. 

Jesuit  missions  in  Lower  California,  51. 

life  at,  64. 
Jesuits'  account  of  Lower  California,  68. 
Jiggers,  remedy  for,  110. 

Jones,  Commodore,  mistake  in  hoisting  the  flag,  148. 
Junipero  Serra,  81. 

characteristics  of,  82. 

his  life,  by  Palou,  83. 

K. 

Kearny,  General,  in  trouble,  195. 
King,  James,  407. 
KlnCt,  James,  shot,  435. 

Eev.  T.  Starr,  585. 

death  of  687. 


652  INDEX. 

Ejno,  his  antecedents,  42. 

his  attempts  to  colonize  Lower  California,  8S. 

L. 

Land  claims,  533. 

Land  Commissioners,  535. 

Latham  elected  Senator,  573. 

Law  in  California,  24G. 

Language:  Missionaries'  devices  to  convey  ideas,  88. 

Legislature,  first,  284. 

Libels,  275. 

Limantouk's  claim,  382,  539. 

Loyalty  of  California,  577. 

Loeetto,  mission  of,  44. 

Lower  California  proved  to  be  a  peninsula,  52. 

Lotteries,  276. 

Lynch  Law,  339,  428. 

M. 

Magellan  on  the  Pacific,  5. 
Mason,  Governor,  report  of,  227. 
Marysville,  387. 
McKee,  Redick,  364. 
Mervine,  repulse  of,  193. 
Mendoza's  fruitless  expeditions,  10. 
Mendocino  visited  by  Viscaino,  33. 
Cabrillo,  12. 
Micheltorena's  arrival,  147. 
Mines,  yield  of,  in  1848-56,  347. 
Mineral  discoveries,  605 
Miracle  at  Loretto,  46. 
Missions  in  Upper  California,  order  of  foundation,  80,  87. 

theory  of,  98,  108. 

population  of,  113. 

meridian  of  prosperity,  129. 

secularized,  130. 

jurisdiction  of,  divided,  135. 

government  of,  100. 
Mining  processes.  349. 


INDEX.  653 


MiNiKG,  various  methods  of,  GOO. 

stock  mania,  GOT. 
McGowAN,  Edwards,  ubiquity,  485. 
Moral  aspects,  633. 
Monterey  discovered,  30. 
MoEMOxs  arrive,  214. 
McDouGALL,  elected  Senator,  579. 

N. 

Natives  of  California,  as  found  by  Drake,  25. 
Natives  of  California,  153. 

great  horsemen,  154. 
Newspapers  on  the  Vigilance  Committee,  437. 
Negroes,  question  of  free,  271. 
Negroes  in  California,  376. 

O. 

Otondo,  Admiral,  attempts  to  colonize,  37. 


Padrez,  136. 

Placerville,  389. 

Page,  Bacon  &  Co.,  403. 

Pacific  Railroad,  642. 

Pai.ou's  life  of  Junipero  Serra,  83. 

Perlet  challenges  Broderick,  553. 

Presidios,  101. 

People's  party  organization,  519. 

Priests'  and  soldiers'  quarrels,  102. 

Pio  Pico,  Governor,  150. 

Pioneer  miners,  245. 

Pious  fund,  67. 

diverted,  127. 

sold,  128. 
Polk  and  the  Pacific  Coast,  253. 
Political  blenders,  341. 
Politics  of  Califurnia,  413 
Portilla's  treachery,  133. 
Population  of  the  State,  357. 


654  INDEX. 

Pont  mail,  641. 
Pueblo  papers,  491. 

Vigilance  Committee  buy  them,  495. 
PoEB^.os,  105,  106. 

various  kinds,  109. 

was  San  Francisco  one?  107. 
Pulpit  on  the  Vigilance  Committee,  439. 


Quartz  crushing,  850. 


Q. 


R. 


Randolph,  Edmund,  58'J, 
Revenue  laws  extend  to  California,  261. 
Reform  city  government,  521. 
Riley,  General  Bennett,  247,  262. 
Russians  in  California,  118,  120. 
Rush  to  California,  237. 


San  Frattoisco,  mysterious  allusions  to,  31, 
found  by  Portalti,  77. 
its  growth,  289,  291. 
in  1866,  381. 

Sacramento,  297,  386. 

State  resources,  601. 

Slavery,  248,  269,  315. 

San  Diego  discovered,  29. 
settled,  76. 

Seal  of  the  State,  278. 

Seward  on  admission  of  California,  313. 

Senatorship,  United  States,  421. 

Smith,  Jcdediah  S.,  first  overlander,  124. 

Smith,  Persifer  F.,  247. 

Smith,  Peter,  judgments,  384. 

Si.oAT,  Commodore,  at  Monterey,  176. 
alarmed,  182,  184. 
returns  home,  186. 


INDEX.  bjo 


SoLiz's  insurrection,  130. 

SoNORA  captured  by  American  insurgents,  170. 

School,  first  public,  291. 

Stockton,  arrives  at  San  Francisco,  184. 

proclamation  of,  186. 

his  march  to  Los  Angeles,  189. 

recovers  his  lost  fruits,  193. 

marches  from  San  Diego  to  Los  Angeles,  199. 
Scott,  Dr.,  and  the  A'igilance  Committee,  511. 
Squatter  riots,  337. 
Sutter  and  Micheltorena,  149. 
Sdtter,  John  A.,  302. 
Suits  against  the  VigOance  Committee,  515. 

T. 

Taylor's  first  message,  307. 
Text  age  of  California,  325. 
Treaty  of  Couengo,  205. 

ignored,  209. 
between  United  Stales  and  Mexico,  235. 
Terry,  Judge,  in  prison,  477. 

friends  at  work,  480. 

friends  in  United  States  Senate,  483. 

freed,  497. 

feted,  498. 

and  Broderick,  561. 

escapes  unpunished,  567. 
Tierra,  Salva,  43. 

his  death,  58. 

u. 

Ugarte  in  Lower  California,  48. 

death  of,  61. 
United  States  Senators  on  Union,  590. 
Union  meeting.  May,  1861,  579. 
Ulloa's  explorations  on  Lower  California  coast,  9. 
Unconstitutional  debt  527. 

assumed  by  the  people,  531. 


656  INDEX. 


Vessel,  first  one  built  in  California,  60. 
VexeptA's  History  of  California,  70. 
ViscAiNo's  explorations  of  the  coast,  28. 
results  of,  35. 
did  he  visit  San  Francisco?  32. 
visits  Mendocino,  33. 
ViciiLANCK  Committee  of  I85G,  432,  461. 

and  Governor  Johnson,  458. 

and  General  Slierman,  458. 

and  General  "Wool.  458. 

organization,  401. 

and  President  of  United  States,  468. 

board  the  Julia,  473. 

collision  with  authorities,  475. 

Governor  Johnson  repudiates  conimissioii  to,  482. 

disbands,  499. 

final  parade,  502. 

address  of  Executive  Committee,  503. 

rooms  inspected,  505. 

winding  up,  507. 

summary  of  their  work,  509. 
VicToniA,  Governor,  131. 

resigns,  133. 

w. 

WnALEns*  visits,  160. 
Wages  in  1849,  329. 
Walker,  William,  393. 

schemes  of,  397. 

death  of,  398. 
Webster  on  admission  of  California,  313. 
Welt.er  on  Terry  and  the  Vigilance  Committee,  484. 

X. 

Xlmexes  discovers  Lower  Califoniia,  8. 


INDEX.  657 


Yankee  Sullivan,  449. 
Yerba,  Buena,  215. 

Z. 

Zabriskie,  Colonel,  on  Vigilance  Ooraraittee,  481,  482. 


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